M¥.N OF OTJE DAT; 



OR, 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



PATRIOTS, ORATORS, STATESMEN, GENERALS, REFORMERS, 
FINANCIERS AND MERCHANTS, 

NOW ON THE STAGE OF ACTION:^ 

IXCLUDINO 



THOSE WHO IN MTLVrARY, POLITICAL, BUSINESS AND 

SOCIAL LIFE, ARE THE PROMINENT LEADERS 

OF THE TBIE IN THIS COUNTRY. 



■.-dpr 



BY L. P.^BROCKETT, M.D., 

AUTHOR OP " OUR GREAT CAPTAINS," " 'WOMEN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR," 
•' LIFE AND TIMES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN," " THE BIOGRAPHICAL POR- 
TIONS OP APPLETOM'S ANNUAL CYCLOP.EDIA," ETC., ETC. 



ELEGANTLY ILLUSTRATED WITH FORTY-TWO PORTRAITS FROM LIFE. 



PUBLISHED BY ZEIGLER, McCUKDY & CO., 

PHILADELPHIA, PENN'A ; CINCINNATI, OHIO; CHICAGO, ILL.; 

ST. LOUIS, MO. 

1868. 





i^''\i 

^^-A ^ 



■V 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by 
L. P. BROCKETT, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern 
District of New York. 



S. A. GEORGE, 

gTESEOTTPBB AXD PRIXTEB, 

124 NORTH SEVENTH STREET, 

PHILADELPHIA. 



DEC 10 1940 



PREFACE. 



" Nothing," says a recent epigrammatic writer, " suc- 
ceeds like success." We may add, nothing interests the 
public like the history of success. Let a man b^poor, 
obscure, and undistinguished by any remarkable or con- 
spicuous deeds, and though he had the wisdom of Solo- 
mon, the meekness of Moses, the patience of Job, or the 
faith of Abraham, yet there would be little or no inter- 
est felt in his history. An humble and outwardly quiet 
life may have its record of heart struggles, its days of 
sunshine and shadow, its nights of wearying anxiety 
and mental disquiet, which are full of interest to beings 
of higher intelligence than ours, and form to the psycho- 
logist a curious study; but for the great mass of man- 
kmd they possess no charm. 

But let this same man achieve, slowly or suddenly, a 
high position ; let him, by some cunning invention, or by 
some bold and daring enterprise, attain a princely for- 
tune ; or, better still, by the bold avowal of some great 



ni 



iv PREFACE. 

and rightepus principle, and patient adherence to it 
through years of obloquy and persecution, win from a 
reluctant world admiration for his fearless persistency ; 
let him at a fitting moment enunciate some great truth 
which shall influence a continent, or speak some word 
which shall loosen a nation's bonds ; let him by calm 
cool bravery, sound judgment and unflinching resolution, 
win his way up from a humljle position to the command 
of great armies, and leading them wisely, bring a long 
and bloody war to a close ; or in the quiet of his study, 
let him forge those lyrics, whose white heat shall set the 
world aflame, and there will be enough to interest them- 
selves in him. His every movement will be chronicled; 
thousands will seek to honor themselves in honoring 
him; his words will be carefully noted and treasured; 
and even the most trivial incidents of his childhood and 
youth will be eagerly sought for, and read with the 
greatest avidity. 

And there is nothing surprising, nothing wrong in 
this. AVhen a man has achieved greatness, it is natural 
that we should desire to know the steps by which he 
has attained to his present position, for there is in every 
heart, and especially in the hearts of the young, a hope, 
seldom expressed, ofti?n hardly acknowledged to them- 
selves, that, knowing the way, they, too, may succeed 



PREFACE. V 

in u.scending to that lofty and distant sununit, where 
"Fame's proud temple shines afar;" and though but 
few have the patienee and the gifts to realize their fond 
expectation, yet they are often led to greater exertion 
than they would have made but for the inspiration of 
such a hope. 

It is the desire to minister to this laudable craving of 
tlie human heart more than any other consideration, 
unless it may be, j^erhaps, a long-cherished fondness for 
biograjDhical studies, which has led the writer to lay 
before his countrymen the pen portraits of these fifty 
men of note in the various walks of public life. All 
of them are now, happily, among the living; and all 
are honored by many, and most of them loved by more. 
A few of them are personal friends and acquaintances ; 
others known to him only by correspondence, have 
kindly furnished, through friends, the materials from 
which he has been able to give their life history. For 
all, his sources of information have been ample, and he 
has endeavored to use them as wisely as he could. That 
the volume may aid in making all its readers, and espe- 
cially the young, wiser and better, in giving them loftier 

and more earnest aims, is his sincere hope and desire. 

L. P. B. 

Brooklyn, N. Y., March, 1868. 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



V. 8. GRANT. 
•W. T. SHERMAN. 
P. H. SHERIDAN. 
GEO. G. MEADE. 
0. 0. HOWARD. 
GEO. H. THOMAS. 

D. 6. FARRAGUT. 
BENJ. F. WADE. 
THADDEUS STEVENS. 
HENRY WILSON. 
LYMAN TRUMBULL. 
O. P. MORTON. 
SCHUYLER COLFAX 
S. P. CHASE. 

E. M. STANTON. 
W. P. FESSENDEN. 
W. D. KELLEY. 

S. C. POMEROY. 
G. S. BOUTWELL. 
JOHN SHERMAN 
JOHN A. LOGAN. 



CHAS. SUMNER. 
EDWIN D. MORGAN. 
REUBEN E. FENTON. 
HANNIBAL HAMLIN. 
W. A. BUCKINGHAM. 
CORNELIUS COLE. 
ANDREW G. CURTIN. 
JAY COOKE. 
CHAS. FRANCIS ADAMS. 
WM. H. SEWARD. 
REVERDY JOHNSON. 

HUGH Mcculloch; 

CORNELIUS VANDERBILT. 
J. A. DIX. 
HORACE GREELEY. 
WENDELL PHILLIPS. 
W. G. BROWNLOW. 
THEODORE TILTON. 
GERRIT SJHTH. 
HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
WM. LLOYD GARRISON. 
vii 



CONTENTS. 



PREFACE... 
CONTENTS. 



GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 

Great leaders Biniug from the people — Often lead quiet and obscure lives till the emergency arises 
which calls them out — Are not always or often those wlio are first thrown upon the top 
wave — General Grant's ancestry — His boyhood — Ilis fondness for horses — Anecdotes — His 
judgment and executive power — Incidents — Fond of mathematics — Don't like tanning — 
gent to West Point — Graduates twenty-first in his class — Service at Jeflerson Barracks — At 
Southern posts — In the Mexican war — Distinguishes himself in the battles of the route to 
Mexico, and is honorably mentioned and brevetted — On garrison duty after the Mexican 
war — In Oregon and on the frontier — First Lieutenant — Captain — Kesigns his commission — 
Reasons for so doing — Becomes a farmer — 111 success — Tries other vocations — Enters " Grant 
and Son's" store at Galena — His political views — The outbreak of the war — He resolves to 
ofier his services to the Government — Adjutant-General of Illinois — Appointed Colonel of 
twenty-first Illinois volunteers — The march to Quiucy — Guarding railroads — Acting Briga- 
dier-General — Commissioned Brigadier-General — Heads off Jeff. Thompson — Mrs. Selvidge"s 
pies — Grant's post at Cairo — He seizes Smithland and Paducah — Another chase of Jeff. 
Thompson — The battle of Belmont — Fort Henry captured — The siege of Fort Donelson — 
Overtures for surrender — " I propose to move immediately upon your works" — The surren- 
der — Ascent of the Tennessee — The camps at Shiloh — Carelessness of the troops — A sur- 
prise—The battle of Shiloh — The Union troops driven back toward the river, and sadly cut 
up — Grant's coolness and composure — The second day's fight — The rebels driven back and 
compellca to retreat — The siege of Corinth — Grant iu command of the Army of the Ten- 
nessee — Battles of luka, Corinth, and the Hatchie — Grant at Memphis — Movement toward 
Ticksburg — The disaster at Holly Springs, and its consequences — Grant at Young's Point 
and Milliken's Bend — Attempts to reach Ticksburg by way of the Yazoo— Canal projects — 
Running the batterries — The overland march — Crossing the river to Bruinsburg — The march 
northward to Jackson, the Black river, and to the rear of Ticksburg — Assaults, and siege- 
Communication opened above the citj' — Surrender of Ticksburg — Tisits home — Accident at 
New Orleans — Appointed to the command of the Military Division of the Mississippi — At 
Chattanooga — Battles of Lookout Mountain and Mission Ridge — Diiving Longstreet from 
Knoxville — President Lincoln's Letter — Grant Lieutenant-Geucral — Preparations for the 
campaign of 1864 — Consultation with Sherman — The opening battles of the spring of 1S64 — 
Wilderness, Spottsylvania, the North Anna, etc.— "I propose to fight it out on this line, if 
it takes all summer" — Battles of Tolopotomy and Cold Harbor — Crossing the James — Peters- 
burg — The mine — Hatcher's Run — The operations in the Shenandoah Talley — Terrible 
pounding — The enemy at last worn out — Cutting their communications — Five Forks- 
Evacuation of Richmond and Petersburg — Lee's surrender — The President's assassination — 
Grant at Raleigh — The nation's gratitude to Lieutenant-General Grant — His Southern tour — 
He accompanies Mr. Johnson to the West — Created General, Julj', lS66^Secretary of War 
ad interim, August, 18GT — Restores the office to Secretary Stanton, January, 18C8 — Rage of 
the President — Summary of General Grant's character — His personal appearance — NiAc: on 
the charge of intemperance made against him — The remarkable balance of his feculties... l(-6iJ 



X CONTENTS. 

ADMIRAL DAVID GLASCOE FARRAGUT. 

FAQI 

Origin of the family — Birth of David — His early aduissioQ to the navy — Adventures in the 
Pacific — Mr. Folson's instmctions— He becomes a licntenant — Marri.-igc — Loss of his wife^ 
His Blow promotion — His accomplishments — Farragut in Norfolk at the outbreak of the 
war — Ills intense loyalty — "I cannot live here" — Removal to Hastings — Employed on the 
Naval Retiring Board — He commands the squadron intended for the capture of New 
Orleans — The bombardment of the forts — Farragut'a resolution — He encounters and defeats 
the rebel squadron, and pa£ses the forts under a terrible fire—" Whatever is done, will have 
to be done quickly"— He ascends the river to New Orleans, and demands its surrender— It 
is surrendered on the 2Sth of April — He continues to ascend the river— Passes Ticksburg— 
Captures Galveston and other Texan ports — Passing the batteries at Port Hudson — Loss of 
the Mississippi — Blockading Red River — Attack on the forts at the entrance of Mobile Bay— 
His plans — Running through the torpedos — The fight with the ram Tennessee — Farragut 
lashed in the rigging — "Go on with speed I ram her again!" — His tenderness for the 
wounded — Kindness to the rebel Admiral — Made Vice-Admiral — The work in the vicinity of 
the Potomac — The gift made to him by loyal merchants of New York — His modesty and 
patriotism — He is promoted to be Admiral, the first in the history of the country — His 
European tour — Personal characteristics — Determination — " That is the very reason you did 
not succeed" 61-77 

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 

His birth — Adopted into the family of Hon. Thomas Ewing — Enters West Point — His high rank 
as a cadet — Services in Florida — At Fort Moultrie — Transferred to California — Promoted to a 
captaincy — Marries — Resigns — Is a banker — President of Louisiana State Military Academy— 
His letter of resignation — Intense loyaltj- — Visits Washington — Incredulity of the Govern- 
ment — Colonel of 13th Infantry — In battle of Bull Run — Desperate fighting — Brigadier- 
General — In command of Department of the OIiio^Exchides the reporters from his head- 
quarters — ludiguation of the "gad-flios" of the press — "Two hundred thousand men 
wanted" — Ad interim Thomas pronounces him crazy — Sherman asks to bo relieved— Is 
shelved at Jefferson Barracks — Halleck assigns him to a division — The hero of the battle of 
Shiloh — The attack on Chickasaw Bluff — Superseded by McClernand — Restored to command 
by Grant — The Sunflower river expedition — Demonstration on Haines' Bluff^The rapid 
marches and hard fighting in approaching Ticksburg from below — His capture of Walnut 
Hills, and assaults on Yicksburg — Pursuit of Johnston — In command of the Army of the 
Tennessee, and en route to Chattanooga — The demonstration on Fort Buckner — Pursuit of 
Longstreet and raising the siege of Knoxville — Tlie Meridian expedition — What it accom- 
plished — Commander of the Grand Military Division of the Mississippi — Number of his 
troops — His communications — The movement toward Atlanta, Dalton, Resaca, Kingston, 
Allatoona Pass, Dallas, Kenesaw Mountain — Crossing the Chattahoochie — Rousseau's raid— 
Tlie battle before Atlanta — Death of McPherson — Siege of the city — Its capture by 
stratagem — Thomas sent northward — Sherman marches to the sea — Capture of Fort McAllis- 
ter and Savaimah — "A Christmas gift" — Sherman's march through the Carolinas — Columbia 
and Charleston captured — Entrance into North Carolina — Results thus far — Battles of 
Averyslioro and Bentonville — Goldsboro occupied — Rest — Sherman goes to City Point — For- 
ward again — Raleigh — Overtures for surrender by Johnston — Sherman's propositions — Their 
rejection by the Cabinet — Grant sent to Raleigh — Surrender of Johnston — In command of 
the Military Division of the Mississippi — Lieuten.\nt-Generai, U.S.A., and LL.D. — Sherman's 
personal appearance and manners — Hia military and intellectual culture — His soldiers' love 
for him 78-106 

VICE-ADMIRAL DAVID D. PORTER. 

His father a naval hero— Sketch of Commodore David Porter — Birth of the future Vice-Admiral — 
He accompanies his father in chase of the pirates when a child — Enters the navy in 1S29 — 
Midshipman — In coast survey — Slow promotion — In Mexican war — On the Crescent City — 
" He would go in" — Promoted to be commander — In blockading squadron — In charge of 
mortar fleet— On the James river— In charge of the Mississippi squadron as Acting Rear- 



CONTENTS. XI 

Admiral — Captures Fort Henderson — Tho Yazoo and Sunflower expeditiims— Running tl e 
batteries — Fight at Grand Gulf— SliellingTicIcsburg; — Tlio Ked river expedition — Gatlierini; 
cotton— Jumping tho rapids — Colonel Bailey's wing dams — Sharp fighting — Recalled to tho 
Atlantic coast — Tlio two attacks on Fort Fisher — Its capture — Capture ofWilmington — Cor- 
respondence with General Butler — Superintendent of tho Naval Academy — Reforms — Pro- 
moted to Vice-Admiralty — Personal appearance and attainments of Admiral Porter — Ilia 
courage 107-lli 

MAJOR-CxENERAL PHILIP H. SHERIDAN. 

His birth and birth-place— Ilis adventures with the Irish schoolmaster McNanly — His appoint- 
ment to West Point — Gets sent down one class for thrashing a fellow cadet — Ilis gradua- 
tion — Serves on the Texas frontier — In California and Oregon — Keeps tho Indians in order — 
His readiness for tho war — Audits claims — Quartermaster for General Curtis — Sent to buy 
Horses — On Ilalleck's staff — Colonel of cavalry — Conunands a calvary brigade — Made Briga^ 
dier-Goneral — Commands the third division in tlie Army of the Ohio— Fortifies Louisville — 
Commands his division at Perryville, and saves the day — His gallant conduct at Stone 
River — He turns the tide of battle — Made Major-General — Sheridan at Chickamauga — Cut 
off by the enemy, but finds his way back— Sheridan in the ascent of Mission Ridge — His gal- 
lant leadership — "How are you?" — He mounts a captured gun — Transferred by General 
Grant's request to tho charge of the cavalry corps in the Army of the Potomac — He re- 
organizes it — Flights seventy-six battles in less than a year — His report — His raid toward 
Richmond — Appointed commander of the Department of the Shenandoah — The battle of 
Opequon creek — Karly "sent whirling" — Made Brigadier-General in regular army — The 
battle of Middletown plains — A defeat and a victory — "We are going to get a twist on 
them !" — The reinforcement of the Union army, " one man, Sheridan !" — " The ablest of 
generals" — The great raid to the upper waters of the James — Marching past Richmond — 
Dinwiddle Court-IIouse — Five Forks — Removal of General Warren — Following up the 
enemy — Ordered to Texas — Commander of the Fifth District — Troubles — The riot and 
massacre — Border Difficulties — Sheridan's decisive action — President Johnson removes him— 
His visit North, and the ovations he received — Personal appearance 120-Usi 

MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE H. THOMAS. 

His bu'th, family, early training — Education at West Point — In the Florida war — In the Mexican 
war — His brevets — His gallantry — In Florida, Newport, Boston, Fort Yuma, and St. Louis, 
tUI 1856— On the Texas frontier, 1850-1860— Major in April, 1861— Lieutenant-Colonel, May 
3d, 1861 — Brigadier-General of Volunteers — In Kentucky — Battle of Mill Spring — Major- 
Qeneral of Volunteers, April 25th, 1862 — In the siege of Corinth — In command at Nashville — 
Commands the centre (first divisions) in the Army of the Cumberland — At Stone River — 
"The Rock of Chickamauga" — Made Brigadier-General in regular army — At Chattanooga — 
Battle of Orchard Knob — In command of the Army of the Cumberland — Marching toward 
Atlanta — Kenesaw Mountain — Peach Tree Creek — Jonesboro— General Sherman leaves him 
to " take care of Hood" — The battles of Franklin and Nashville — A glorious victory — Major- 
General in regular army — Commander of tho Jlilitary Division of the Tennessee — Johnson's 
efforts to bribe him — Ills personal appearance 150-168 

MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE GORDON MEADE. 

Born in Spain — His family — His education at West Point — His engineering services — In tho 
Mexican War — Survey of the northern lakes — ^In command of one brigade of the Pennsyl- 
vania Reserve Corps — Army promotions — Battle of Mechanicsville — Wounded in the Seven 
Days — Division conmiandcr — Commands a corps at Antietam— At Fredericksburg — Succeeds 
to command of fifth army corps — Major-General of volunteers — Battle of Chancellorsville— 
The march into Pennsylvania — General Meade succeeds General Hooker — His general order 
on assuming command — Battle of Gettysburg — The pursuit of Lee — Lee's attempt to sever 
his communications— General Meade's action of Jline Run — He commands tho Army of the 
Potomac through the campaign of 1864-5 — Made Brigadier and Major-General in regular 
army— In command of Military Division of the Atlantic — Suppression of Fenian invasion of 
Canada — Transferred to the Military Division of the South — His services there— His personal 
appearance. 159 107 



Xll CONTENTS. 

MAJOR-GENERAL OLIVER OTIS HOWARD. 

PAea 

His birtli and education — A giaduate of Bowdoin college — Enters West Point — Uraduatea fourth 
in bis class — Ilia service before the war — Assistant professor at West Point — Colonel of 
volunteers from Maine — Leads a brigade at Bull Bun — Brigadier-General of volunteers, Sep- 
tember, 1861 — Loses bis arm at I'air Oaks — At second battle of Bull Run — At Antietam 
and Fredericksburg — Major-General of volunteers, and conunauder of fbe eleventh corps— 
The battle of Cbancellorsvilk — Punic in eleventh corps — Gettysburg — Gallant behavior of 
General Howard — Howard at Chattanooga — The assault on Fort Buckner — The march to 
Atlanta — Succeeds to the command of the Army of the Tennessee — Ilis bravery — Leads the 
right wiug of Sherman's army in the march to the sea, and through the Carolinas — Anec- 
dote of Sherman and Howard, '/io(€— Made Brigadier and brevet Major-General in the regular 
Army — Appointed Commissioner of the Freedman'a Bureau — President Johnson's opposition 
to this bureau — He desires to remove General Howard from the commlssionership, but is 
prevented by the Tenure of Office law — The difliculties in the administration of the affairs of 
the bureau caused by the President's opposition — Literary honors conferred on General 
Howard — His private character — Anecdote, note 168-17i 

SALMON PORTLAND CHASE. 

Birth and ancestry — His father's character and career — Mr. Chase's early education — Bishop 
Chase's invitation — His stay at Cleveland — The ferry boy — His life at Washington — Re- 
moves with his uncle to Cincinnati — The bishop goes to England, and his nephew returns to 
New Hampshire — Teaches, and enters Dartmouth college — His standing there — The re- 
vocation of the faculty's sentence on his fellow student — At AVashington — Teaching — Studies 
law under William Wirt — Commences practice in Cincinnati — Partnership — Defends J. 6. 
Birney — Other anti-slavery cases — "A promising young man who has just ruined Iiimself "^ 
Defends Birney again, and Van Zandt — " Once free, always free" — Aids in organizing a Lib- 
erty party — The third clause of the Constitution of the United St.ates — No mental reserva- 
tions — Address to Daniel O'Connell — The S. and W. Liberty Convention — The Van Zandt 
and Dieskcll vs. Parish cases — Mr. Chase in the Senate — His ability there — Withdraws from 
the Democratic party in 1852 — ^Elected and re-elected Governor of Ohio — His financial ability 
in that position — Again in the Senate — In the Peace Conference — Appointed Secretary of 
the Treasury by Mr. Lincoln — His incessant labors— Tlio skill and success of his financial 
neasures — His early loans — The five-twenties — The National Banking Act — The seven- 
thirties and ten-forties — Brief exposition of his policy — His resignation — His appointment as 
Chief Justice — Tour at the South — Characteristics of Chief Justice Chase's mind — He pre- 
sides over the impeachment trial — His personal appearance — A possible candidate for the 
Presidency — His position on national questions 178-198 

EDWIN M. STANTON. 

Mr. Stanton of Quaker ancestry — His grandparents and father remove from North Carolina to 
Ohio^His birth in Steubenville, Ohio — His early education — Studies law with Judge Tap- 
pan — Reporter to Supreme Court — Gains a large practice in U. S. Courts — Removes to Pitts- 
burgh, and in 1856 to Washington — Is sent to California by the Government in a land grant 
case — Attorney-General in the Buchanan administration — Succeeds Mr. Cameron as Secretary 
of War — Judge Holt's opinion of him — His inuiiense labors in the department— His roughness 
of manner, but real kindness of heart — TheaMest war minister of modern times — Mr. Johnson 
desires to get rid of him — His letter and Stanton's reply— Mr. Johnson suspends him — Gen. 
Grant Secretary ad inlerim — The Senate reinstates him— An attempt to remove him is fol- 
lowed by Mr. Johnson's impeachment — At the close of the impeachment trial, Mr. Stanton 
retires 199-207 

WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD. 

Birth and education— Studies law with John Anthou and others— Removes to Auburn— Mai^ 
riage — Partnership — Presides over an Adams' Young Men's Convention — An anti-mason — 
Elected to the State Senate — His career there— Goes to Europe — Elected and re-elected 
OoTernor— Measures of his admiuistratiou — Controversy with Governors of Georgia and Vir- 



CONTENTS. xiii 

PAOI 

ginia— Resumes the practice of law — Tlio Freeman case — Tlio Van Zandt case— Tlie Michigan 
Conspiracy cases — Political and literary addresses — Klectcd U. S. Senator — " The higher 
Jaw"— lie is abused hy pro-slavery men — The subjects ho discussed — Ilis literary labors- 
Argument iu the McCormick Reaper case — Re-election to the Senate — His great labors in 
the Senate — " The Irrepressible Conflict" — The presidential nomination in 1860 — Mr. Seward 
a candidate — Uo canvasses for Mr. Lincoln — Entertains the Prince of Wales — Is appointed 
Secretary of State — The important questions ho had to handle — Mason and Slidell — Some 
dissatisfaction felt with some of his measures — Tenders his resignation to Mr. Lincoln — It ia 
not accepted — " Sixty or ninety days" — The accident to Mr. Seward — Attempt to assassinate 
Lim — Ilia recovery — Regrets — Mr. Seward's recent course — llis purchases of territory — Ilis 
losB of reputation by hia support of Mr. Johnson's schemes — The lesson of his public life 208-222 

HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN. 

'* We raise lura" — Mr. Hamlin's family — His birth and education — An editor — Studies law— Ad- 
mitted to the bar — Removes to Hampden, Maine — In the Legislature — In Congress — His 
defence of New England — Re-election — His labors — Elected to the Senate — His opposition to 
slavery — Leaves the Democratic party and becomes a Republican — Elected Governor by au 
immense majority — Re-elected to the Senate — Replies to Senator Ilanmiond's " Mudsill" 
speech — Nominated and elected Vice-President — Tlio Confidence he inspired — His judicious 
course — The folly which prevented his re-nomination — Appuiuted Collector of Boston — Ilis 
resignation, and its cause — llis letter to Mr. Johnson— Subsequent career — Personal ap- 
pearance — Character 223-232 

HON. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WADE. 

Birth and early life — Goes to Ohio on foot — Cutting wood — School teaching — Driving cattle — 
Work on the Erie canal — Teaching again — Studies law — His first case — His unremitting 
study — His success — Prosecuting attorney for Ashtabula — Elected to the State Senate — His 
work there — His anti-slavery views give offence — Returns to the practice of his profession — 
Canvasses Ohio for General Harrison — His marriage — Again elected to the State Senate — 
Procures the incorporation of Oberlin college — Makes an able report against the refusal of 
the right of petition by Congress — Defends J. Q. Adams — Declines re-nomiuation to the 
Senate — Resumes practice — Elected in 1847 President Judge of third Judicial District of 
Ohio^His ability as a judge — Chosen U. S. Senator in 1851 — Takes the stump for General 
Scott — Abandons the Whig party in 1854, and avows himself a " Black Republican" — His 
speech — Incidents of the Kansas-Nebraska debate — The southern fire-eater — "A foul- 
mouthed old blackguard" — " Gag" Atherton and Mr. Wade — Some men born slaves — " The 
dwarfish medium" — " Selling his old mammy" — Senator Douglas's " Code of Morals" — Lane 
of Kansas — "Well, what are you going to do about it?" — Wade not to be crushed — "Good- 
by, Senator" — "The Liberator, one of our best family papers" — Toombs's tribute to Senator 
Wade's honesty and integrity — Ilis avowal of his radicalism — The assault on Senator 
Sumner — Senator Wade's fearlessness — Ilis action during the war — Re-elected to the 
Senate — President of the Senate, and A'ice-President of the United States — His personal ap- 
pearance — His keen eye — An excellent presiding officer — The measures he haa initiated and 
advocated — His only disagreement with President Lincoln 2S.3-2i>fi 

HON. SCHUYLER COLFAX. 

ai^ birth and early life — Removal to the West — Clerk in a country store — Deputy county au- 
ditor — Studies law — The debating society and mock legislature — Owns and edits the St. 
Joseph Valley Register — Not a iirinter by trade — Ability with which the paper was con- 
ducted — 5Ir. Wilkeson's account of Mr. Colfax at this time — Mr. Colfax's remarks — A dele- 
gate to, and secretary of, the Wliig National Convention in 1848 — Member of the Indiana 
Constitutional Convention — Opposes the Black laws — A candidate for Congress in 18.51, but 
defeated — Delegate and secretary of the National Whig Convention in 1852 — Elected to Con- 
gress in 1854 — His maiden speech — Half a million copies circulated — Canvasses forCoIonel 
Fremont as President — Successive re-elections to Congress — Speaker of the House for three 
anccessive sessions — llis remarkable ability as a presidinp; officer— Ilis interest In the Paciiio 



xiv CONTENTS. 

PAOH 
railroad— Overland journey to California — "Across the continent" — His cauTass for Mr. 
Lincoln— Cordial and intimate relations with him — Personal ajjpearance — Manner as a 
speaker — Psfsage from one of his speeches — Religious character — Nominated for the Vice- 
Presidency - 25«-2W 

HON. WILLIAM PITT FESSENDEN. 

Birth and lineage — Educated at Bowdoiu college — Studies la*— Removes to Portland — A mem- 
ber of the Maine Legislature— Declines political office — Becomes eminent aa a lawyer — Id 
the Legislature in 1839 — Elected to Congress in 1840 — Declines a re-nomination — In the 
Legislature in 1845-6^Important legal cases tried by Mr. Feasendcn — Elected to Congress, 
but does not claim his seat — Member of three successive National Whig Conventions — In 
the Legislature 1853-4 — Chosen U. S. Senator, 1854, by. a coalition — Avows himself a Ropub- 
lican — Ilis great services in the Senate — Re-elected twice — Receives degree of LL.D. from 
Bowdoin and Harvard — Chairman of finance committee — Appointed Secretary of Treasury 
in 1864 — Situation of the finances at this time— Mr. Fessenden's wise measures — Their 
happy result — More comprehensive and efficient taxation— Re-elected to the Senate— Again 
at the head of the finance committee— His political and personal bearing — His unexpected 
action with reference to impeachment— His intellectual ability 26.« 275 

HON. JAMES HARLAN. 

Birth and early educational advantages — Educated at Ashbury university — Professor of lan- 
guages in Iowa City college — State Superintendent of Public Instruction — Studies law and 
practices it for five years — President of AVcsleyan university, Mt. Pleasant, Iowa — Elected 
XJ. S. Senator — Circumstances of election — Resigns the presidency of the university, but 
accepts the professorship of political economy, etc. — His course in the Senate— His severe re- 
buke of the Democracy — They resolve to get rid of him — Vote to unseat him on account of 
irregularity in his election — Ho returns to Iowa and is immediately re-elected, and returns 
to his seat — A fearless, thorough, and true Republican Senator — Member of the Peace Con- 
gress of 1861 — An intimate friend and adviser of President Lincoln — Review of his Senatorial 
action — Extract from one of his speeches — Member of Union Congi'essional Committee in 
1864 — Appointed Secretary of Interior by President Lincoln — Cannot sympathize with " My 
Policy" — Resigns — Is returned to the Senate — His high integrity 276-286 

HON. CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 

His lineage— Birth— Early residence abroad— Fights the English boys for the honor of America- 
Enters Harvard college — Graduates with high honors — Studies law with Daniel Webster — 
His marriage— In the State Senate— Contributes to tha reviews, etc — Collects materials for 
life of his giandfather— Edits the UosU/n UVo*?— Nominated by the Free-Soilers for Vice- 
Presidency— The Boston Whig becomes the Boston Kepublican—yiv. Adams disposes of his 
interest in it— His " Life and Works of John Adams'"- Elected to Congress in 1858 and 1860— 
His course there— Appointed Jlinister to England by Mr. Lincoln— His extraordinary ability 
as a diplomatist — His gi'eat services to the country — His manner and bearing 287-291 

HON. JOHN ADAMS DIX. 

Birth and Uncage — Educated at Philips' academy, Exeter, N. H., and at Montreal— Enters St. 
Mary's college, Baltimore — Offered and accepts an Ensign's rank in the army — His promo- 
tions—His father's death— Captain in the Third Artillery- Visits Cuba— His marriage — Ad- 
missiiin to the bar— In political lifo— Ailjutant-Ciciieral of New York- Secretary of State — 
In the Legislature — Tour of Europe — U. S. Senator — Nominee of Free-Soil ers for Governor — 
Assistant U. S. Treasurer at New York — Postmaster of New York City, 1859 to 1861 — 
Secretary of the Treasury, January to March, 1861 — "If any man attempts to haul down 
the American flag, shoot him on the spot !" — Presides over Union meeting in Union Park- 
Appointed Major-General in regular army, June 16th, 1861 — In command of District of 
Maryland— Transferred to Eastern Virginia — Commands Department of the E.ast — Trial and 
•xecution of Beall and Kennedy — Presides at the Philadelphia Convention— Nominated by 



CONTENTS. XV 

p.iai 
President Johnson Naval Oflirer of the Port of New York, nnd the same day tJ. S. IHinistoi- 

to France— Chooses the latter — Is confirmed, and enters upon his duties in January, 1867— 

Uis published works— His personal appearance 292-298 

WILLIAM ALFRED BUCKINGHAM. 

llti lineage— Ilis birth and early training — Bonovolenco of his parents — His education — A clerk 
in New York City, and afterward in Norwich — In business for himself — Treasurer of Hay- 
ward Rubber Company — One of the founders of the Norwich Free Academy — Mayor of Nor- 
wich — His benevolence — Elected Governor of Connecticut, and seven times re-elected — His 
prompt and noble action at the ommencement of the war — Equips the troops on his own 
responsibility — Sends his adjutant-general to Washington to cheer the President — His 
official letters to the President — His congratulation to the President on the issue of the 
Emancipation Proclamation — The majorities by which ho was re-elected — Close of his guber- 
natorial career — His nomltuition by his State for Vice-Presidency — lie withdraws his name 
from the convention— Is elected to the U. S. Sepate — Personal appearance 299-303 

GOVERNOR REUBEN E. FENTON. 

Biith and lineage— Early education — He reads law — Engages in mercantile business, and after a 
time in the lumber trade — Is successful — Chosen supervisor — Elected Representative in Con- 
gress in 1S52, and again in 1S56, 185S, 1860, and 1862 — Uis course and labors in Congress— 
His opposition to slavery — Became a Republican in 1854 — An active suppoiter of the Gov- 
ernment during the war — Nominated for Governor and elected in 1SG4 — His able adminis- 
tration — His opposition to corruption — Sympathy with the soldiers — His vetoes — His address 
to President Johnson in August, 1866 — Tlie political situation in the autumn of 1866 — Gov- 
ernor Fenton re-nominated and re-elected by a larger majority than at first — Continuation 
of his policy — The rebel dead at Antietam — The Governor's message of 1808 — His fidelity to 
the people — His radicalism — His integrity — Resolution of the Republican State Convention 
in February, 1868 S06-317 

HON. OLIVER PERCY MORTON. 
iJirth and early life — ^Testimony of his instructor — Enters Miami university — Stutlies \a.\v — Mar- 
ries — Acquires distinction in the legal profession — Leaves the Democratic for the Republican 
party— Is nominated for Governor in 1856, but defeated — His great ability as displayed iu the 
canvass — His energy and tact in the thorough organization of the Republican party — Is nomi- 
nated for Lieutenant-Governor in 1800, and elected — Governor Law chosen Senator, and 
Lieutenant-Governor Morton becomes Governor — Condition of affViirs in Indiana at this 
time — Corruption and fraud — Secessionism — He commits the State to loyalty — Ilis exertions 
to send troops into the field — Ho sends State agents to care for Indiana soldiers — The condi- 
tion of Kentucky— He ascertains the plans of the rebels there — Sends aid to the Union men 
at Louisville and elsewhere? — The Kentucky Unionists adopt him as their Governor— The 
Indiana soldier — Governor Morton's fidelity to the absent troops — Malicious charges of his 
enemies — He is triumphantly vindicated — His influence with the Government — The "Order 
of American Knights" — Their hatred of Governor Morton — Their falsehoods — The "butter- 
nut ticket" — The copperhead Legislature — Their insults to the Governor — Tliey refuse to 
pass the appropriation bills — Their intention to embarrass Governor Morton — His course^ 
The bureau of finance — He is re-nominated for Governor — His overwhelming labors at this 
time— His re-election by a sweeping majority — His complete overtlirow of the " Sona of 
Liberty" organization— Ilia zeal for the soldiers — He welcomes them home — The exhaustion 
which followed when this long-continued tension was o'er — Paralysis — He sails for Europe — 
His health still feeble — He is elected to the Senate — His services there — His speech on re- 
coastruction — The two statues 31S-S3] 

HON. RICHARD YATES. 
Hb birth and education— A member of the Illinois Legislature for six years — A Representative iu 
Congress in 1851-5 — Elected Governor of Illinois in 1860 — His patriotism and energj- — His 
extraordinary labors in raising troops in lSGl-62 — His letter to President Lincoln — Its ap- 



XVI CONTENTS. 

F.KC.B 

peal for the employment of all loyal men, white or black, in putting down the rebellion— 
Governor Yutes'H success in raising troops — Uis eloquent appeal to the Illinois Legislature — 
The outrageous conduct of the Legislature — Their determination to thwart his measures-- 
Governor Yates prorogues them to December Slst, 18(54, when the legal existence of tho 
Legislature would terniinato— Uis constant and earnest labors for the eohiiers — His election 
to tho V. S. Senate — Tho reports in relation to his intemperance — His letter to his con- 
stituents — Uis moral courage 332-338 

HON. GEORGE S. BOUTAVELL. 

Birth, lineage, and education — In a country store — The old library — Self-culture — His earnestness 
as a student — He studies law — A public lecturer — A political speaker — A member of the 
Massachusetts Legislature for seven years out of nine — Otlier offices held by Mr. Boutwell^ 
A candidate for Congress — Nominated for Governor, and elected in ISol and 1852 — In the 
Constitutional Convention of 1S53 — For ten years a member of the board of education, and 
for five years its secretary — Literary and scientific honors — Uis interest in agriculture— Uis 
anti-slavery views — Member of the Teacs Congress in 1S61 — Commissioner of internal 
revenue in 1861-62 — Member of Thirty-eighth, Thirty-ninth, and Fortieth Congresses— A 
manager in the Impeachment — Uis habits of mind — Uis effectiveness as a speaker 339-344 

HON. REVERDY JOHNSON. 

Birth and Uncage — lie studies law — Reports the decisions of the Court of Appeals — Appointed 
deputy attorney-general of Maryland — Removes to Baltimore — Civil appointments — Klected 
State Senator — Serves for four years — Resigns to devote himself to his extensive practice- 
Senator in Congress 1845-49 — Attorney-General United States, 1S49-50 — Retires from office— 
His reputation as a jurist — Delegate to Peace Conference, ISGl — U. S. Senator, 1863-69 — Uis 
course during the i-ebellion — Uis devotion to tho Constitution — On the committee on recon- 
struction — Uis arguments in the Senate— The judicial character of his mind 345-347 

HON. JAMES AV. NYE, 

Prevalent ideas concerning the Senators and Representatives in Congress from the new States^ 
Their erroneousness — Senator Nye's birth and early education — Uis study of the law — Comes 
to New York — Enters political life — Uis eloquence — Tho measures ho advocated— Police 
conmiissioncr in New York — Uis labors in the Fremont and Lincoln canii)aigns— Appointed 
Governor of Nevada Territory — Elected Senator from Nevada in 1865, and subsequently, for 
six years from 1867 — Uis labors in tho Senate— Accompanies the body of President Lincoln 
to Illinois 348-360 

REV. WILLIAM GANNAWAY EROWNLOW. 

His birth and ancestry — Early struggles — Uis early education imperfect and irregular — Learns a 
trade — Goes to school — Enters the Methodist ministry — Uis political experiences in South 
Carolina — Controversy on slavery — Uis prediction — Uis aecountof his political creed — Estab- 
lishes tho Knoxville Whig in 1837 — Its character — "The Fighting Parson"— Discussion with 
Rev. J. ]{. Graves — Debate with Rev. Abram Payne — Brownlow for the Union uncondition- 
ally — He is persecuted by the secessionists — His paper stopped — Uis imiirisonment for four 
months — Sent into tho Union lines — Makes a tour of the Northern States — '' Brownlow's 
Book" — Residence in Ohio — Returns to Nashville and Kuoxville — He re-establishes his 
paper under the title of "The Knoxville AVhig and Rebel Ventilator" — Its fearless denun- 
ciation of rebels — lie has gradually become a Radical-Elected Governor of Tennessee in 
1865, and re-elected in 1867 — Elected U. S. Senator for six years from March, 1SG9 — His ac- 
count of himself — His intensity of expression 351-358 

GOVERNOR RICHARD J. OGLESBY. 

Birth and early training — Studies law — Volunteers for tho Mexican war — Promoted to a first 
lieutenancy — Returns and resumes his practice— Crosses the plains to California — Returns 
to Illinois in 1S51— Elected to the Legislature in 1852— Makes a tour through Europe and 



CONTENTS^ XVU 

PAGB 

the East in 1S56-57 — Nominated for Congress but defeated — Elected to the State Senate in 
I860 — Colonel 8tU Illinois infimtiy — Promoted to bo Brigadier-General — Foremost in every 
battli' — Sovcrply wounded at Corinth, Oclolier 4tli, 1802— Proniotetl to Major-(Jlcner:U.--hi[.— 
Reports for dnty April 1st, 18(33 — Commands k'ft wing of 10th army corps — His wounds 
compel his resignation — Nominated for Governor of Illinois, and clwtcd November ISOi— 
Opens the great fair at Chicago, May, 1805 — llis patriotism 359-S62 

HON. GALUSJIA A. GROW. 

Birih and early training — Removal to Pennsylvania — Struggles of bis mother to support and 
educate her boys — Enters Amherst college— Graduates with high honors — Studies and prac- 
tices law— Uis success — Nominated for Congress in 1850 — Circumstances of the nomination — 
Elected — Re-elected by very largo majorities to five successive Congrossps-:-Defeatod by a 
new apportionment in 1862 — Feeble health — Goes to Emope in 1S55 — Makes a tour in the 
Western Territories in 1857 — Ilis industry and elllcioncy in Congress — " Father of the Home- 
stead Bill" — His speech on the subject — Opposis slavery steadily — Speech on the Brooks- 
Sumner outrage — Postal Reform — Speaker of the House, 1861-63 — Volunteers for defence of 
Washington — His character and record 363-870 

HON. EDWIN D. MORGAN. 

Advantages of business training in public aflixirs — Birth of Mr. Morgan — His clerkshii) — Be- 
comes a partner — Removes to New York — Uis business enterprise and success — Alderman — 
Commissioner of Emigration — Avows himself a Republican — Nominated for Governor in 
1858, and elected — Re-elected in 1860 — Ills great labors and- responsibilities during the 
first two years of tho war — Major-General of Volunteers — Will not receive pay — Sends for- 
ward 223,000 troops — Elected United States Senator — His course in the Senat^ — Offered the 
position of Secretary of Treasury, but declines it „ 371-374 

HON. CHARLES SUMNER. 

Birth — Ancestry — Education — Eminence as a scholar — Studies law — ^Ilis great attainments in 
tho literature of the law — Edits tho "American Jurist" — Reporter to the Circuit Court — 
Sumner's Reports — Lecturer in the law school, and editor of law treatises — Visits Europe — 
Uis cordial reception there — Incidents — Heturn to. America — Devotes himself to law studies, 
and to lecturing on law — Oration on "the truogramleur of nations" — Offered a place as Judge 
Story's successor in the Law School — Determines to enter political life as an Abolitionist — 
His public addresses on slavery— Associates himself with the Free-Soil party — Elected 
United States Senator in 1851 — His avowed position — Uis great speeches on slavery — The 
Kansas-Nebraska bill — "Tho worst and best bill at the same time" — iVnti-slavery speeches 
out of Congress — Uis eloqucccc — Ills speech on "The crime against Kansas" — The mnrder- 
ous assault of Brooks and his associates upon Mr. Sumner — The effect upon the nation— 
The distressing result of the injuries inflicted upon Mr. Sumner — His recovery, and return 
to his plate in the Senate — Uis oration on '• Tho barbajisni of slavery" — Uis opposition to 
all compromise — Advocates universal emancipation — Chairman of committee on foreign re- 
lations — Uis great services in tho Senate during the 'wai- — His published. Orations, and other 
works — Character „ 375-388 

HON. HENRY WILSON. 

Birth— Early struggles with poverty — His thirst for knowledge — Uis reply to Senator Ham- 
mond — He enters a shoe shop to learn the trade^At tempts to obtain a collegiate education 
—Ho is foiled by fraud — In the academy — Visit to Washington — Discussion — Return to 
Natick and shoemaking — Enters political lift — Elected to the Legislature^State Senator- 
Petitions against admission of Texas as a slave State— Speech, in opposition to farther ex- 
tension and longer existence of slavery in America — Becomes a Free-Soil er in 1S4S — Edits 
tho Boston Republican — Again in the Legislature — State Senator — Originates tho coali- 
tion — Candidate for Congress, and for Governor — Elected United States Senator in 1855, as 
successor to Edward Everett— Horror of the old lino Whigs— Mr. Wilson's qualifications for 
li 



?:VU1 COXTENTS. 

PAsa 

the p:*itiou — lie is twice rc-elcctcJ — His Imstillty to slavery — Ilis defiance of tlie S^iitlicru 
leaders — TIi« attack on Mr. Sumner "brutal, murderous, and cowardly" — Hrooks's chal- 
lenge — AVilson's reply — Brooks silenced — Wilson's courage— Chairman of military aflaire^ 
His incessant labors in that comniitfee and in the Senate — Incidents of the early days of the 
war— General Scott's appreciation of hw services — Ilis military (service — Raises two regi- 
ments— Volunteer aid on General McClellan's stafT — The General's regret at his resignation 
—Military measures originated by him — Mr. Cameron's opinion — His intercourse with Sec- 
retary Stanton — Mr. AVilson's constant e.xortions in behalf of the army — Other measures 
advocated by him — .\nti-slav*ry legislation — The Frcednien's Bureau Bill — Ilis zeal for the 
oppressed— Ilis character — A -candidate for the Vice-Presidency 389-40S 

HON- JOUN SHERMAN. 

His ancestry— The family large— John «cnt to Mount Vernon, Ohio, to school — At fourteen be- 
gins to earn his own way — Studies civil engineering with Colonel Curtis — Curtis removed 
fiom office, and Slieruian discharged — Wunts to go to college, but cannot accomplish it^ 
Studies law and literatnre, and works as a law clerk, all at the same time — .Vdmitted to the 
bar — In partnership with his brother Charles — In political life — Delegate to national con- 
ventions — Presidential elector — Elected to Congress — His services there — Re-elected three 
times — Chosen United States Senator, in Mr. Chase's place, in 1861, and re-elected in IS67 — 
His labors on the finance comiaitteo— His bill to fund the public indebtedness — Ilis support 
of home industry — Action on reconstruction — His new funding bill in XLth Congress — Its 
provisions — His defence of it — P-er«o»ial appearance. 409-419 

HON. LYMAN TRUMBULL. 

Bu-th and parentage — His education — Removal to Georgia — Admission to the bar — Removal to 
Illinois and settlement in Chicago— Election to the State Legislatnire — Becomes Secretary of 

State Justice of the Supreme Court of Illinois — Representative in Congress — Election to 

the TJ. ?. Senate — Twice re-elected — Ilis opposition to secession — Advocacy of conciliation- 
Chairman of the Judiciary Committee — He moves an amendment to the Confiscation Bill^ 
Advocates and defends the Emancipation Proclamation — Sustains tUt act suspending the 
habeas corpus — Defends the first Freedmaii's Bureau Bill, attaching an nni-endnient provid- 
ing for permanent confiscation of rebel property — .\ided in drawing up the second and third 
Freedmen's Bureau Bills— Presented the Civil Ilighta Bill— His course in regard to the im- 
peachment of the President. •120-4iil 

HON. SAMUEL C. POMEROY. 
Personal appearance — Parentage— Education — A student at Amherst college — In business— The 
Wayne County Liberty Party C<>nvi-iition — Returns to Ma.isarhnsotts — A member of the 
Legislature in lSo2 — Mr. Pmneroy's opposition to slavery — .Vntliony Burns — Eloquent njv 
peal— The Kansae-XebrasUa Bill — Mr. Pom<?roy's zeal and activity" — The X. E. Emigrant's 
Aid Society — Mr. Pomeroy, agent — Ills inc-essant and protract<»d labors — Mrs. Pomeroy's 
heroism — The journey to Kansas — The Bible and 6i)eliing-book — Governors Recder and 
Geary—The border ruffians — He gets possession of the town of Atcheson and its news- 
pa;iii— stumps the State against the Lccorapton fraud— The famine— "&erf CDrn Pomeroy"— 
His great efforts to feed the starving — Chosen U. S. Senator — Re-elected in 1807 — A Radical 
In the best sense— "The Slaveholder's Rebellion"— Other moasuros- His chai-acter 425-438 

HON. CORNELIUS COLE, 
Birth— Early education — Graduates fromWesIeyan university, Conn. — Studies law — Admitted t« 
the Oswego bar — Emigrates to California overland — Digs gold— In 1S60 commences the pra*. 
tico of law in San Fran<<sco— Ilis opposition to slavery- Defends some negroes whom it was 
sought to reduce to slavery again — Marries— Edits the Sacramento Daily Times — Returns 
to the practice nf his profession— District Attorney for Sacramento— Elected Representative 
in Congress in 1803 — His speeches on the China mail line — On slavery— The Constitutional 
amendment for its abolition— .\ friend of Mr. Lincoln— Ro-clocted to the House, but chosen 
Senator by the Legislature in December, 1865 434-440 



CONTENTS. XIX 

HON. THADDEUS STEVENS. 

PAOS 

[lis two periods of pnblic service — Ilis birth and early training — Ktlucation at Dartmuutli cjlk-go 

— Kemoval to Pennsylvania — Toaclios, and studies law at the same time — Admitted to the 
bar— Gains a large practice — Enters upon a political career — In the Pennsylvania legisla- 
ture— Menibor of Constitutional convention, hut refused to sign the Constitution because it 
restricted snffi-ago on account of color — The imbroglio of the governors, Ritner and Porter- 
Stevens said to bo " Governor Ritner's conscience-keeper" — A canal commissioner — Kemoval 
to Lancaster — Manufacturing — Abandons politics — A member of the XXXIst and XXXIId 
Congresses — Opposes tho Kansas-Nebraska and other bills in tho interest of slavery^Ue- 
inains at homo for six years — Elected to tho XXXVIth Congress, and each one since — The 
leader of the Kouse — Tho measures ho has initiated and supporteii — His part in the Im- 
peachment trial — His able plea — lie favors impartial suffrage — Mr. W. H. Barnes's descrip- 
tion of him— His grim humor „ , 411-447 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BUTLER. 

Moral and physical qualities often inherited — General Butler's ancestry — Ilis birth — Death of 
his father — Fitted for college— Enters Waterville college, Maine — Graduates — Studies law- 
Voyage to Labrador — His indomitable energy, and fondness for work — His interest in poli- 
tics—A democrat — Delegate to national conventions — A coalitionist in 1S;,2 — A member of 
the legislature, and of the constitutional convention — Opposes the Know-Nothing party 
vehemently — Deprived of his command as colonel by Governor Gardner — lie is elected 
Brigadier-General by tho militia officers, and receives his commission from Governor Gard- 
ner — Runs for Governor in 1S5S and 1S59, but is defeated — A member of the State Senate^ 
The measures advocated — A delegate to the Charleston Democratic convention in 18C0 — His 
opposition to southern aggressions there — Nominates Breckinridge — Unpopular at iiume— 
Runs again for Governor, but is badly defeated — A'isits Washington — His eyes opened — He 
returns home and urges Governor Andrew to prepare for war— Starts for Washington with 
three regiments, one having gone the previous day, April 18, 1861 — Landing at Annapolis — 
The march from Annapolis to Washington — Laying track all the way — In command of the 
department of Annapolis — Baltimore in rebel hands — lie takes possession of the city- At 
Fortress Jlonroe — Big Bethel — Slaves " contraband of war" — Expedition to Fort Hattcras^ 
The New Orleans expedition — Butler commands the land forces — Ship Island — He takes pos- 
session of New Orleans^ — His occupation and government of the city — What he accomplished 
—He is relieved of his command — His services elsewhere in 186S — The New York riots— In 
command of the army of tho James — The attack on Petersburg — The Dutch Gap canal- 
Subsequent movements — Expedition against Fort Fisher — Failure — Subsequent reduction 
of the fort by Admiral Porter and General Terry — General Butler elected to the XLlh Con- 
gress — One of the managers in the Impeachment trial — His opening jilea — His character 
and ability as a lawyer — Incidents illustrative of his satirical power — He squelches Fer- 
nando Wood .....x..^ 448-465 



HON. WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 

Buth— Parentage — Early struggles — Removal to Boston — Becomes skilled in the art of enam- 
elling — Contributes to the newspapers of the day, and gains some reputation as a writer — 
Removes to Philadelphia — Studies law, and is admitted to the bar — Is appointed attorney- 
general of the State — Elected Judge of the Court of Common Pleas — Re-elected upon an 
independent ticket — Extracts from an address before the Linnjean Society of Pennsylvania 
college — Was nominated as the Republican candidate for Congress, but not elected— Elected 
and three times returned— Was council for tho Government in the prosecution of the pirates 
of the rebel privateer " Jeff. Davis" — Speech on impartial suffrage — Other important speeches 
in Congress and abroad — Introduction of a bill securing the right of suffrage to the colored 
population of the District of Columbia— Visit to the Southern States — Opposition to Mr. 
Johnson's policy — High character »• - 466-474 



iX CONTEXTS. 

UON. JOHN A. BINGHAM. 

Mr. Bingham's conceiied ability as a member of Congiess, a debater, and a lawyer— Uis Krth 
and education— Ue studies aud practices law with distinction— Election to Congress inlS;4^ 
Re-elected five times — He is assigned a prominent place on important committees, and distin- 
guishes himself— Judge-advocate in the Union army in 1864, and solicitor in the court of 
claims — Assistant judge-advocate in the trial of the assassins of President Lincoln— Contro 
Tersy with General Butler— A manager in the Impeachment trial— His personal appear- 
ance •175-477 

HON. JAMES F. WILSON. 

nJB eminence as a lawyer — ^Birth and education — Removes to Fairfield, Iowa — A member of the 
Iowa constitutional convention — Civil appointments— Chosen State Senator — Re-elected, and 
made president of the Senate — Manifests remarkable ability — Elected to Congress, and 
thrice re-elected — Appointed chairman of the Judiciary Committee on the part of the House— 
A very high honor for bo young a member — Acquits himself with great ability— Uis speech 
on granting impartial suffrage in the District of Columbia — One of the Impeachment mana- 
gers 478-481 

HON. ROSCOE CONKLING. 

Circumstances of Mr. Conkling's first election to Congress — Uis birth and lineage — His educa- 
tion — lie studies law — Appointed district attorney for Oneida countj- — Mayor of Utica— 
Elected to Congress — Thrice re-elected — lie detects and convicts some- parties of frauds 
against the government — The " ring" determine to crush him — The exciting Congressional 
canvass of ISGG.— Mr. Conkling elected to the U. S. Senate in January, 1S67— Uis intense 
radicalism— The case of Judge Patterson, of Tennessee — Mr. Conkling's speech 4S3-4S5 

MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN A. LOG.-IN. 

Bii-th, aud early advantages of education — Scarcity of schools in Illinois at that tim&— Enlists 
in the Mexican war — Is promoted to be lieutenant and adjutant — Returns home and studies 
law — Elected county clerk — Admitted to the bar — Elected Prosecuting attorney of third 
ju/Jicial district — Sent to the Legislature^Married — Chosen presidential elector — Elected to 
Congress in 1858 and in 18G0 — Joins the army as a private at the battle of Bull Run — Re- 
turns home to stir up his constituents to enlist — Colonel 31st Illinois volunteers — In battle 
of Belmont— At Fort McUenry — Wounded at Fort Donelson — Brigadier-general at Shiloh — 
In command at Jackson, Tennessee — Major-general cf volunteers, Xovember 29, 1862 — 
Takes part in the siege of Yicksburg — Saves the day at Raymond, Mississippi, Maj- 12, 1863 
—Makes the assaiilt, Juno 25, on Vicksburg — His column the first to enter the city of 
Vicksburg after its surrender — lie is made its military governor — On furlough at the north 
in the autumn of 1S63, speaking in behalf of the Union — Commands the fifteenth army 
corps from November, 1863 — Takes part in the march to Atlanta and its terrible fighting— 
" McPherson and revenge" — In the Presidential campaign of 1864 — Joins his corps at Sa- 
vannah, and marches through the Carolinas — Commander of the army of the Tennessee^ 
Appointed minister to Mexico, but declined — Elected to the XLth Congress from the State 
at large, receiving fifty-six thousand majority — One of the Impeachment managers — Charac- 
ter and personal appearance 486-490 

HON. HENRY J. RAYMOND. 

Birth and childhood — Early struggles for education — Enters college, and graduates from the 
Onivcrsity of Vermont in 1840 — Goes to New York — Commences the study of the law, sup- 
porting himself by literary labor — IILs connection with the iVti« Torl;cr and the Cincinnati 
CAroHtcJp— Becomes attached to the staff of the Tribune in April, 1841 — Labors as reporter — 
His reports of Lanlner's and Lyell's lectures — Becomes an editor of the Courier and En- 
quirer — Edits ITarjhr's ilonOihj for ten years — The Fourier discussion — Elected to the Leg- 
falature— Ke-elected in 1850, and chosen speaker — Visits Europe— Establishes the NewTork 



CONTENTS. XXI 

r.vQB 
Times— X momber of Whig National Convention in 852 — Exciting scene — Noniinattil for 
Lieuteuaut-Qovernor, and elected by a coalition — Joins tlio Republican iiartj- — 'Wiitos the 
Address to the People, of the National Convention at Pittsburg — Supports and canvasses for 
Fremont — Visits Europe again, and as an eye-witness describes the battle of Solforino — En- 
gages actively in the canvass for Lincoln in 1S60 — Letters to Yancey — His aujiport of th« 
Government during the war— Ilis Wilmington speech — Elected to Congress in ISM — His po- 
sition that of a moderate Republican — The charge of iiojitical inconsistency — Its injustice— 
His speeches and votes in Congress — The Phil,idelphia Convention of August, lS66^Mr. 
Raymond secretary, and writer of the address — Failure of the convention — Mr. Raymond 
withdraws from politics — Ilis ability as a writer and editor — Uis published works — llis tal- 
ents as a public speaker 491-508 

CORNELIUS VANDBRBILT. 

rs-:,- ;in--t.--t:'.v — ^li-^ Mr'!i — \ot fond of books — Incidents of his boyhootl — The boat — Resolutions 
aud pertinacity of puipooe — Ihe purchase of the perriauger — Confidence of "Corneile the 
boatman" — " Carry them under water part of the way" — Ilia stout defence of his rights — 
Blarriage — The new perriauger and the schooner — Worth $9000 — Captain of a steamboat- 
Plies between New York aud New Brunswick — Keeps a hotel also — Leases the New Y'ork 
and Elizabethport ferry — Ilis success in nil these enterprises — The Livingston monopoly — 
C»ipfaiu Vandcrbilt's expedient to avoid arrest — The nionopolj' pronounced void — Vanderbilt 
in business for himself — lie builds and runs lines of steamers on the Iludsou, the Sound, and 
elsewhere — Opposition lines — His triumphs — The Nicaragua transit — Mr. Vandcrbilt's energy 
and enterprise — Makes the tour of Europe in his own steamship, the " North Star' — His 
reception — Discerns the necessity of increased facilities of communication with Europe — Pro- 
position to Government — It is not accepted — Establishes an independent Hue of fast steamers 
to Havre — One of his steamers, the Vanderbilt, makes the best time of any steamer on the 
Atlantic — His subsequent gift of this steamer to the Government — Resolution of thanks by 
Congress — His title of Commodore — Never insures eitlier vessel or cargo — Vanderbilt the 
Railroad Kino— Harlem R. R.— Hudson River R. R.— New York Central R. R.— Erie R. R,— 
The possible future Lord Paramount of Railroads — His affection for his mother — Kindness 
of heart — Personal appearance W-t-ol9 

ABIEL ABBOT LOW, 

The enterprise and energy of the great merchant as worthy of record as the- victories of the war- 
rior — Mr. Low's title to honor aud esteem — Birth — Early education for business — Removal 
to Brooklyn — Kesideuce in China — Pai-tuership there — Return to America — Establishes the 
house of A. A. Low & Brothers — Takes the lead in the China trade — Establishes a Japan 
house — Losses during the war — Ilis large-handed liberality — President of New York Cham- 
ber of Commerce — His ability as a presiding officer — Ilis thorough patriotism and cheerfnl- 
uess— His assistance to the Government — Mr. Low in private life 520-523 

JAY COOKE. 

Robert Morris and Jay Cooke — Lineage of the Cooke familj- — Eleutheros Cook&— His talents, 
eminence, and position — Birth of Jay Cooke — His father's care for the education of his chil- 
dren — Jay determines to earn for himself — Enters Mr. Hubbard's store as clerk— Goes to 
St. Louis as bookkeeper and clerk — Returns to Sandusky — Bookkeeper for his brother-in-law 
in Philadelphia — The firm broken up^Returns to Sandusky — Is offered a position by E. W. 
Clark & Co. — Accepts, and is in high favor — Becomes a partner at 21— The barkeeper story- 
Its falsity — Jay Cooke's kindness — He becomes the active business manager and leading 
partner in the firm of E. W. Clark & Co. — Writes the first money article in a Philadelphia 
paper — Retires from the firm in IS.jS with a handsome fortune — Forms a partnership with 
his brother-in-law in 1S61, under the name of Jay Cooke & Co. — Object of this partnershij)^ 
Negotiates State and Government loans — The popular loan of fifty millions in 1S61 — Jay 
Cooke & Co. place one third of the amount taken — The agency for the five hundred millions 
of five-twenties — Jay Cooke appointed agent — The risk and responsibility of the undertak- 
ing—Government takes no risks — His excessive labors — The gloomy outlocik at first^Tho final 



XXll CONTENTS. 

PAOB 
great (■nccess— His compensation for this work very small— Mr. Cbose's economy — Mr. Cbaso 
attemiits to float a ten-forty loan — Advance in price of gold — The national banking system^ 
Its struggles at first — Increasing demand of the Government for money — Mr. Chase re- 
signs — Mr. Fesseudcn appointed Secretary — (Jold still rising — Mr. Fessenden ajiplies to Mr. 
Cooke to sell the new seven-thirties — His agencies again in operation — The cfl'orts put 
forth — Success — End of the rebellion — Operations of Jay Cooke & Co. since the war — Mr. 
Cooke's liberality — The rest for hard-worked persons 5',24-538 

HON. HUGH McCULLOCH. 

Birth — President of the State Bank of Indiana — Comptroller of the currency — Succeeds Mr. 
Fessenden as Secretary of the Treasury — His financial views — His management— Synijia- 
thizes with Mr. Johnson 530 

GEORGE PEABODY. 

Mr. Peabody the most princely giver of modern times — Ilis birth — Adverse circumstances- 
Brief opportunities of early education— A clerk at eleven years of age — A partner in a busi- 
ness house at seventeen — A partner in the wliolesale dry-goods trade at nineteen — Ilemoved 
to Baltimore — Branch houses in New York and Philadelphia in IS22 — Visits Europo— The 
head of tlie house of Peabody, Riggs & Co. — Visits Kurope often — Takes up his residence 
there in 1S37 — Withdraws from the firm in 1843, and establishes a banking house to deal in 
American securities — His reputation for integrity and high honor — His kindness to Ameri- 
cans — Crystal palace exhibition— Mr. Peabody's liberality— The toast to the Danvers 
bi-centennial — Donations to Danvi'rs — Contributes to the Griuuell Arctic E.xpeditioii — Mis 
gifts for the founding of the Baltimore Institute— Lodgings for the poor of London — The 
Queen's acknowledgment of his generosity — Visit to the United States in 1S66 — The educa- 
tional fund of $2,100,000— The nol.le gifts to Harvard and Yale — Other donations— Five 
millions of dollars in gifts o40-aW 

HORACE GREELEY. 

Birth — Family history — Hardships in early life — Picking stones — His thirst fur kuowledgi' — His 
cleverness at spelling — The spelling match— llis eagerness in study — His father removed to 
Bedford, New Hampshire — More hard work — His early choice of a vocation — His father's 
failure — Ilcmoval to Vermont— Boy life in Vermont — Bee hunting — Teetotalism — Bec.inies a 
Uuiversalist — Commences to learn the printer's trade — The piinting-oiBce at East Puultney, 
Vermont — The debating society — His extraordinary memory — The fugitive slave cha.M — 
The paper discontinued — Mr. Greeley works at Sodus, New York, and at Erie, Pennsylvania 
— Resolves to try his fortunes in New York city — His description of his entry into the nii- 
tropolis — His early e.xperienccs^Tlie pocket Testament — Other work — He undertakes to 
publish a newspaper — partnership with Mr. Winchester — The 2\'cw Yorker prosperity — Mar- 
riage — The crisis of 1837 — Living through it — Mr. Greeley edits also the Xirlrrsoniun in 1S3S, 
and thoioj? Cabin in 1840 — Starting the Tribune — His success — Mr. McElratb a partner— 
Fourierism — The monthly American Laborer — Book iniblishing — The EMning and Sciiii- 
Weekly Tribune — Burning of the Tribune office — Mr. Greeley in Congress — Great success of 
the Tribune — Becomes an Association — Mr. Greeley's '• Uiuls toweinis refurin" — Visits Eng- 
land — His services to popular literature there — Other books— His course during the war 

Mobbing of the office— His " History of the American Conflict" — Personal character and 
ways — Peculiarities of opinion— The Tribune his idul— Ilis independence of opinion 546-567 

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRLSON. 

Birth— His mother— Superiority of her mind— His father— Apprenticeship— Schools— Inden- 
tured to r. printer — Writes for the paper — Contiilmtes to otlier periodicals— Starts two or 
three papers, b\it is unsuccessful—His decided anti-slavery views — Associates with Benja- 
min Lundy, in Baltimore, as editor of the Genius of Emancipation— llis articles excite hos- 
tility-Arrested and imprisoned, on the charge of libel— Release through Arthur Tappau's 
efforts— Lectures on slavery— Issues the first number of the Liberator in January, 1831^ 



CONTENTS. :£xiil 

PAOI 

His deelanit ions — Extreme puvoity of liimsolf ami liis partner — His i.erseculioiis — Orjiivu- 
izes the New Eiigiand Anti-Slavery Society — Visits Kngland in lb33 — His cordial rereiiiion 
tljere — American Anti-Slavery Society rornied — Mobs — George Thompson obliged to return 
to England — Mr. Garrison mobbed — Inscription in his cell — The peace question — Mr. Gar- 
rison a non-reslslant — World's Anti-Slavery Convention — Woman's rights — Mr. Garrison 
again in Europe in 1S40 — His religious position — Ilis action during the war — Uis efl'orts for 
emancipation — Fort Sun)ter — At the close of the war withdraws from the American Anti- 
Slavery Society — Discontinues the Liticratm-—\ iMa England in 1SC7 — A banrjuet given him 
by John Hright and others — Other honors — American testimonial of $o3,(IOO — Letter of the 
committee — Mr. Garrisou's reply — liis letter to a friend 5G8-cSl 

WENDELL PHILLIPS. 

'ratory an American gift — What constitutes the most effective orator — Is it natural or .acquired 
— Mr. Phillips' fust public oration — Ilis birth and ancestry — Educated at the Loston 
schools, Harvard college, and Cambridge law school — Ilis remarkable scholarship — His fas- 
tidiousness — Danger from this — Garrison mobbed — Pliillips' sympathies roused — He avows 
himself a co-worker with Garrison — The thirty years' contest — Uis ideal always in advance 
— The business of his life — Ilis gifts as a public lecturer — The Lovcjoy murder — Mr. Phil- 
lips' reply to the attoruey-general at Faneuil Hall — Mr. Phillips at the anniversaries cf the 
American Anti-Slavery Society — Ilis power over his audiences — lie quells mobs by his man- 
ner — Incident — Mr. Delane, of the London Times — Other reforms advocated by Mr. Phillips 
—Ilis versatility, and wide general culture — He does not consider his work done — His 
peculiarities — Mr. Phillips in private life 5S2-o89 

REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

liis popularity — Reasons for it — Versatility of talent — Lectures — Remarkable industry — Culti- 
vated t;iste — Extr.aordiuary intellectual power of the Boecher family — Dr. Lyman Beecher— 
Birth of Henry Ward — Death of bis mother — His youthful training — Desire to go to sea— 
Ilis love of humor in college and since — His general culture — The Saxon origin of most of 
his language — His theological course — Not a controvei'sialist — Settled at Lawrenceburg, In- 
diana — Called to Indianapolis — His remarkable piopularity there — Publishes lectures to 
young men — Edits an agiicultural paper — Growing reputation — Called to Plymouth church, 
Brooklyn — Accepts — The fashion to "go and hear Beecher" — Peculiarity of his preaching— 
The crowded house maintained — Growth of his church — Increase of bis salary — Outside 
work — His care of his bo<ly and brain — His immense labors — Edits the In<lipt:ndi)i( — Foi 
once overworked — He goes to Europe — Is compelled to speak there in behalf of his country — 
Mobs — His success — Ilis subsequent labors for the soldiers — Ilis leaning to excfssive mercy 
to the South — Uis eyes opened — Uis earuest patriotism 590-602 

HON. ANDREW GREGG CURTIN. 

Birth and education — Ancestry — Studies law — Admitted to the bar — Takes an interest in poli- 
tics — Canvasses for <ieneral Harrison, for Henry Clay, for General Taylor, and General 
ScoU — On the electoral ticket in 1848 and 1852 — Declines nomination for Governor — State 
Secretary — L.aboi-s in behalf of education — Devotes himself to the practice of law— A leading 
railroad man — Nominated and elected Governor in 1S60 — His incessant labors in raising 
troops, organizing a reserve corps, and protecting Pennsylvania during the war — Invasions 
of Pennsylvania — Re-elected in lS(i-3 — .\ctively engaged in business since his retirement from 
office — His political services — Pressed by his I'riends for Tice-Presidency, hut withdraws his 
name C03-606 

HON. GERRIT SMITH. . 

His philanthropy — His birth, lineage, and education — Studies law — Vice-President of Coloniza- 
tion Society — Withdraws from it — His eloquence — Uis anti-slavery views — Mental charac- 
teristics- -Philanthropy on other subjects — Temperance — Hostility to tobacco^Prison reform 
^"Bleeding Kansas" — Laud reform— (.iives away two hundred thousand acres of land, 



XXIV CONTEXTS, 

PAQI 
niii3fly in small farms, and money with each— Troubles with his colonists— John Brown — 
Electe.l to Congress — Resigns — Attacked violently by the press after the John Brown raid — 
Temporary insanity — Sustains the Government during the war — Helps to bail Jefferson 
Davis — His religious views — The reduction of liis estate by his lavish giving — His published 
works 607-611 

THEODORE TILTON. 

Birth ar.fl education — Early auti-slavory training — Prefers journalism as a calling — Engaged on 
the Independent — His advancement — Becomes editor in chief— His editorials — His poems — 
Mr. Tilton as a lecturer — Speech at dinner of New England Society — Personal appear- 
ance 612-618 

HON, EZRA CORNELL. 

Birth— Early training — Mechanical genius — Builds a house — In machine shop— Takes a flour- 
ing mill — In agricultural business — Becomes interested in telegraphs — Laying telegraph 
wire in pipes — Originates the air-lino plan — Opposition of public men to telegraph lines at 
first — Professor Kenwick — Mr. Cornell's success — His large investments — President of State 
Agricultural Society — In State Senate — The Cornell library at Ithica — His magnificent 
benefactions to education — The Cornell University — Genessee College — The agricultural 
land grant — Ilis plans — The noble character of this beneficence 619-628 

MATTHEW VASS.AR. 

English birth — .Vncestry — Emigration to this country — Settlement in Dutchess county — Sowing 
barley — Making ale — His preference f,ir other business — Misfortunes of his fother's family — 
Commences business as a brewer — His success — Marriage^.^.ma8ses a large fortune — Tour 
in Europe — His ideas of some benevolent enterprise — Different directions in which his atten- 
tion was turned — Decides on a college f)r women — Gives over $400,000 toward it — Called 
TAS9.1R College — His views in regard to it — The college — Its perfection of arrangements — 
Founder's Day 629-639 

DANIEL DREW, 

Birth — Early education — Bemoval to New Tork city — Steamboat enterprise — Origin of the 
" People's Line" — Becomes a stock broker — Founding of the " Drew Theological Seminary" — 
Other benefactions — Personal appearance 640-043 

ALEXANDER TURNEY STEWART, 

His store in 1S25 and ISCS— A native of Belfast, Ireland— Reared by a Quaker grandfather— An 
elegant classical scholar— Emigrates to New York — A teacher— Enters business — Is dis- 
charged by one of his salesmen— The calico dress — " You won't last very long"' — Mr. Stew- 
art's principles in business — His keen foresight and admirable taste — Great memory— No 
speculation — His fondness for classical literature and for the fine arts — Ilis extension into all 
the branches of trade — The great advantages of a vast capital well managed — Competition 
with other houses — Applications for charity — His largo benefactions — Political views — Build- 
ing houses — His foreign branches — Income — Houses for the poor &t4-653 



GENERAL TJLYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 



i^^N all human history, whenever a nation has been rent by 

^1 internal convulsions, or threatened with destructicn by 

^^^ Ibrpiign invasion, the occasion has always developed 

^ some great leader to command its armies, or restore 

peace between its embittered factions. 

In tracing the lives of the men thus called to leadership, 
three facts constantl}'- attract our notice. They are almost, 
without exception, of and from the people; rarely or never 
from the aristocratic class. Though intelligent and thoughtful 
men, they have usually led quiet and often obscure lives till 
called to their great duties, and not unseldom, neither thev nor 
their friends were aware of the power which was held in reserve 
in them. And, finally, they have not been the men first selected 
by popular acclaim, for the work which they accomplish. 

Our great captain has been no exception to these general 
laws, He is a man of the people ; though educated for the 
army and serving in it fur some years in a subordinate capacity, 
his life had been quiet and obscure, and neither he nor his 
friends were conscious of his possession of these rare faculties 
which he subsequently displayed. Moreover, in these days, 
when General McClellan was regarded as "the coming man,'' 
there seemed as little probability that this plain taciturn briga- 

2 n 



18 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

diei at the West, would become the general-in-chief of all our 
armies, and perhaps the President of the United Statie, as that 
the diminutive sub-lieutenant of the French army, would be- 
come Emperor of France, and arbiter of the destinies of Europe. 

General Grant is descended from Matthew Grant, a native of 
Plymouth, England, or its vicinity, who emigrated to Dorches- 
ter, Massachusetts, in 1630, and to Windsor, Connecticut, in 
1636. Ilis son and grandson, both named Samuel, settled in 
the adjacent town of Tolland. Noah, a son of the second 
Samuel, removed to Coventry, Connecticut, and two of his sc'us, 
Noah and Solomon, were officers (captain and lieutenant) in the 
Provincial army, in the old French war, and both were slain at 
Crown Point, or its vicinity, in 1756. Captain Noah Grant 
left a family in Coventry, and his eldest son, also Noah, entered 
the Continental army at the beginning of the Revolutionary 
war, as lieutenant of militia, and remained in it till its close, 
and, though in many battles, was never wounded. After the 
war he settled in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, where his 
son, Jesse Root Grant, one of a numerous family, was born, in 
January, 1794. The father removed in 1799 to what is now 
Columbiana county, and in 1805 to Portage county, Ohio. 

At the age of sixteen, Jesse was apprenticed to his half- 
brother, then living at Maysville, Kentucky, to learn the tan- 
ning business, and after serving his time, he set up for himself at 
Ravenna, Portage county, Ohio. Here several years of toil 
were followed by a severe and protracted illness from inter- 
mittent fever. In 1820 he removed to Point Pleasant, Ohio, 
twenty-live miles above Cincinnati, and the same year married 
Miss Hannah Simpson, of Clermont county, Ohio. Their eldest 
child, Ulysses Simpson Grant, or as he was christened, Hiram 
Ulysses Grant, was born at Point Pleasant, April 27, 1S22. 

His father, who is still living, an enterprising and shrewd 



GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 19 

Belf-rcliaiit business man, was ready to enter upon any honest 
undertaking which gave a promise of success. He continued 
his business as a tanner, but did not confine himself exclusively 
tc that, and whatever he undertook prospered. The mother 
of the general is also still living, a woman of sound judgment, 
and superior moral and mental endowments, marked and supe- 
rior moral and mental traits, a sincere and consistent Christian, 
whose steadiness, firmness, and strength of character have im- 
pressed themselves indelibly upon her children. 

The young Ulysses is said to have developed, almost from 
infancy, a remarkable passion for horses. From the age of five 
years, his father states, he would ride the horses to water, stand- 
ing up on their bare backs, and at eight or nine would stand up 
on one foot and drive them at full speed. At seven and a half 
years he harnessed and drove a horse alone all day, climbing 
into the manger to put the bridle and collar on. At eight and 
a half, he would drive a team day after day hauling wood, and 
at ten would manage a pair of spirited horses on a long journey, 
with p^ifect skill and safety. So complete was his mastery of 
horses that he broke them with great facility, and no horse 
could throw him. From the various incidents which his father, 
with a pardonable pride, relates of him, we find evidence 
of his possessing, even in childhood, the qualities of system, 
method, calculation, self-possession, and that cool imperturbable 
courage and persistency which have since marked his character. 
His judgment was beyond his years. Few boys in their twelfth 
year could have been trusted to go to a large city two hundred 
miles' distant, and take a deposition to be used elsewhere in a 
Juwsuit; and fewer still, at the same age, would have had the 
judgment and mechanical tact to load upon a wagon a number 
of pieces of heavy timber a foot square, and fourteen feet long 
with no aid except that of a horse. 



20 MEN OF OUR BAY. 

His self-pobsession and iniperturbability were fairly illus- 
trated in an incident which /lis father relates of hiui as occurring 
when he was about twelve years old. 

"He drove a pair of horses to Augusta, Kentucky, twelve miles 
from Georgetown, and was persuaded to remain over night, in 
order to bring back two young ladies, who would not be ready 
to leave until the next morning. The route lay across "White 
Oak Creek. The Ohio river had been rising in the night, and 
the back water in the creek was so high, when they came to 
cross it in returning, that the first thing they knew the horses 
were swimming, and the water was up to their own waists. 
The ladies were terribly frightened, and began to scream. In 
the midst of the excitement, Ulysses, who was on a forward 
seat, looked back to the ladies, and with an air perfectly undis- 
turbed, merely said : ^DonH speak — / toill take you through safe.'' " 

He ^\■as popular with his schoolfellows and the boys of his 
age, and though not a talker or boaster, not tyrannical or im- 
perious, not quarrelsome or violent, he fell naturally into his 
place as a leader among the boys. He was not remarkable as 
a scholar, though fond of mathematics and maintaining a 
creditable position in his studies generally. For the rest, he 
was a manly, active, industrious boy, with a clear head, a kind 
heart, a well balanced judgment, fond of all outdoor sports and 
labors, and with a well knit frame and a constitution of great 
vitality and endurance. 

Though always ready to work, he had a special dislike for 
the tanning business, and whenever called upon to do any work 
in connection with the tannery, he would find something else 
to do, and hire a boy to work there in his place. When he 
was a little more than sixteen years of age, his father called 
upon him one day to work with him in the beam-room of the 
tannery. He obeyed, but expressed to his father the strong 



GENERAL ULYSSES WMPSON GRANT. 21 

dislike he felt for the business, and his determination not to 
follow it after he came of age. His father replied that he did 
not wish him to work at it unless he was disposed to follow it 
in after life, and inquired what business he would like to enter 
upon. He answered that he would like either to be a farmer, 
a down-the-river trader, or to get an education. The first two 
avocations his father thought out of the question, as he was 
then situated, but inquired how he would like to go to the 
Military Academy at West Point. This suited the boy exactly, 
and the father hearing that there was a vacancy in his own 
Congressional District, then represented by the Hon. (afterward 
General) Thomas S. Hamer, made application, and Ulysses was 
appointed immediately, and in the summer of 1839, was admit- 
ted as a cadet in the Military Academy. The standard of 
admission at West Point was then very low, and he was below 
most of his eighty-seven classmates in scholarship. Several of 
them had graduated from college before entering the Academy, 
and all had enjoyed much better advantages than he, yet at 
the end of the four years' course, only thirty-nine graduated, 
and among these Ulysses S. Grant stood twenty-first — midway 
of the class. He ranked high in mathematics and in all cavalry 
exercises, and had made good progress in engineering and 
fortification studies. His demerits were almost wholly of a 
trivial character, violations of some of the minor regulations of 
etiquette, in the buttoning of his coat, the tying of his cravat or 
shoes, or matters of that sort. 

Dr. Copp(ie, now President of Lehigh University, Bethlehem, 
Pennsylvania, who Avas at West Point with Grant, says of him • 
" I remember him as a plain, common sense, straight-forward 
youth ; quiet, rather of the old head on the young shoulders 
order; shunning notoriety ; quite contented while others were 
grumbling ; taking to his military duties in a very business-like 



22 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

manner ; not a prominent man in the corps, but respected by all 
and very popular with his friends. The soubriquet of " Uncle 
Sam" was givoc him there, wherf every good fellow has a nick- 
name, from these very qualities ; indeed he was a very uncle- 
like sort of youth. He was then and always an excellent 
horseman, and his picture rises before me as I write, in the old 
torn-coat, obsolescent leather gig-top, loose riding pantaloons 
with spurs buckled over them, going with his clanging saber 
to the drill-hall. He exhibited but little enthusiasm in any 
thing ; his best standing was in the mathematical branches and 
their application to tactics and military engineering." 

On his graduation in 1843, cadet Grant was assigned a posi- 
tion as brevet second lieutenant of the fourth regiment. United 
States Infantry, and joined his regiment in the autumn of that 
year, at Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis, Missouri. He had 
a classmate, Frederick T. Dent, who was from St. Louis, and 
who had been assigned like himself to the fourth infantry. The 
two were warm friends, and Lieutenant Dent (now Brigadier- 
General Dent, on General Grant's staff) took his classmate to his 
own home, whenever they could obtain leave. Here he formed 
the acquaintance of the estimable lady, then Miss Maria Dent, 
whom five years subsequently he married. His stay at Jeffer- 
son Barracks was not long. In less than a year he was ordered 
to Camp Salubrity, Natchitoches, Louisiana, and a year later to 
the Mexican frontier, under the order for military occupation 
of Texas. There, on the 30th of September, 1845, he attained 
his commission as second lieutenant, and by special favor, was 
allowed to remain in the fourth infantry, though his appoint- 
ment was originally made out to the seventh. When the war 
with Mexico at last commenced, the fourth infantry formed a 
part of General Zachary Taylor's army of occupation, and 
Lieutenant Gr^nt took as active a part as his rank and position 



GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 23 

permitted, in the battles of Palo Alto, May 8, IS-iG, — Resaca de 
la Palma, May 9, — Monterey, September 21-23, whore his 
gallant conduct received honorable mention I'rom his comman- 
der, and in the siege of Vera Cruz, March 9-29, 1847. On the 
1st of April, he was appointed quartermaster of the fourth 
infantry, preparatory to the long and difficult march upon the 
city of Mexico, and he held this position from that time, to 
July 23, 1848, after the close of the Mexican war. But though 
his early experiences qualified him to fill this position with 
great ability, he did not, as by the army regulations he might, 
consider himself excused from service in the field. He was in 
nearly every battle of the campaign ; at Cerro Gordo, April 17- 
18, 1847, at San Antonio, August 20, at Churubusco, the same 
day, at Molino del Rey, September 8, where his gallant and 
meritorious conduct procured him a brevet of first lieutenant, 
and the praise of his commander, at the storming of Chapultepec, 
September 13, where he won a brevet of captain and the 
encomiums of that stern old soldier General Worth, and at the 
assault and capture of the city of Mexico, September 13-18, 
1847, where he obtained the more substantial honor of a 
promotion, two days later, to the first lieutenancy in his regi- 
ment. After the war, he was assigned to garrison duty at 
Sackett's Harbor, New York, for a year, then again made 
quartermaster of his regiment, which position he held for four 
years, to September 30, 1853. He had married in 1848, soon 
after his return from Mexico, and the next four years were 
passed in quiet garrison duty, at Sackett's Harbor, Detroit, 
Michigan, again at Sackett's Harbor, and at Fort Columbus, 
New York. But in 1852, he was assigned to duty at Benicia, 
California, and subsequently at Columbia Barracks, and at Fort 
Vancouver, Oregon, and Fort Humboldt, California. In August, 
1853, he attained to a captaincy, and after another year's service 



24 ME^' OF OUK DAY. 

on tlie Pacific slope, lie resigned his commission, July 31, 1854 
He was prompted to tbis step by several considerations. It* 
was a time of peace, and the prospect of rapid promotion wa? 
slight, especially to a man who had not thus far developed 
those brilliant qualities, which sometimes enable a man to mount 
rapidly, even in peace, the ladder of promotion ; the pay of a 
captain in the regular army, especially with the great cost of 
every thing on the Pacific coast at that time, was not sufficient 
to furnish more than a bare support to a man with a family ; 
he was liable to be assigned almost constantly, as he had been 
for two years already, to duty on frontier posts, where he could 
not take his family, and where the associations were unpleasant. 
He was now thirty-two years old, and if he was to be any thing 
more than a poor, army captain, it was time that he should 
make a beginning. Such are the reasons assigned by his family 
for this step, which seemed for a time to be an unfortunate one. 
Shall we add another, which there is every reason for believing 
to be true, and which, rightly considered, does him honor ? In 
the monotony and tedium of barrack and garrison life, and 
surrounded by rough associates, he had formed the habit, it is 
said, of drinking freely, and that habit was becoming so marked, 
that the War Department had thought it necessary to reprove 
him for it. By abandoning his associates and the associations 
in which he had been thrown on the Pacific coast, there was an 
opportunity for him to enter upon a new life, and to abstain 
thenceforward from this ruinous indulgence. He returned to 
the 'east, and having rejoined his family, who had remained at 
his father's, during his absence on the Pacific, he removed to 
the vicinity of St. Louis, where his father-in-law had given his 
wife a small farm, and his father had stocked it. Captain Grant 
put in practice his resolution to abandon all intoxicating drinks, 
and labored zealously on his farm for four years. President 



GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 25 

Coppee speaks of having met him at St. Louis in his farmer's 
rig, whip in hand, and having enjoyed a very pleasant inter- 
view with him, at which Joseph J. Eejnolds, Don Carlos Buell^ 
and Major Chapman of the cavalry were also present. He adds, 
" If Grant had ever used spirits, as is not unlikely, I distinctly 
remember that, upon the proposal being made to drink, Grant 
said, * I will go in and look at you, for I never drink any 
thing ;' and the other officers who saw him frequently, afterward 
told me that he drank nothing but water." 

But he was not destined to succeed as a farmer. He was 
industrious, steady, and economical, but it was all in vain. In 
1858, he relinquished the farm and moved into St. Louis, and at 
first undertook the real-estate business with a man named 
Boggs, but after a few months' trial, finding that the business 
was not sufficient to support both families, he relinquished it to 
^is partner and sought for something else. lie next obtained a 
position in the custom house, but the death of the collector who 
appointed him, caused him to lose that in a few months. He 
had endeavored while on his farm to eke out his scanty income 
by occasionally acting as collector, as auctioneer, etc., but with- 
out any considerable success. 

Meanwhile, his father had been prospering, and had, in con- 
nection with two of his younger sons, established a leather and 
harness store at Galena, Illinois. He now offered Ulysses a posi- 
tion and interest in this store, which was gladly and thankfully 
accepted. For two years he continued in this business, Avhich 
seemed better suited to his tastes than the farm. 

It is said, that up to this time he had been a Democrat in his 
political views. With his father's strong Whig and Eepublican 
sentiments, this hardly seems probable. It is more credible 
that, as he himself is reported to have said, he had not voted 
for years, and had taken very little interest in national affaira 



26 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

The education and general tone of feeling among the officers 
of the army, had made them, to a great extent, sympathizers 
with the South, pro-slavery in their views, and opposed 
to the Republicans, whom they regarded as, in some sort, the 
Abolitionists under a new name. How far Captain Grant shared 
these feelings, is uncertain. 

One thing we know, he possessed that fine soldierly instinct 
of honor and loyalty, which was wanting in so many of his for- 
mer comrades. When the Southern troops fired on the nation- 
al flag at Sumter, he only knew that it was his country which 
was assailed, and thenceforward there was no question of poli- 
tics. " On that morning of April 15, 1861," says a lady friend, 
who was in his family, " he laid down the paper containing the 
account of the bombardment, walked round the counter, and 
drew on his coat, saying : ' I am for the war to put down this 
wicked rebellion. The Government educated me for the army, 
and though I served faithfully through one war, I feel still a 
little in debt for my education, and am ready to discharge the 
obligation.' " He went out into the streets of Galena, aided 
in organizing and drilling a company of volunteers, with whom 
he marched to Springfield, the capital of the State. He had no 
ambition to serve as commander of this company, and hence 
declined their nomination of him for captain. Hon. E. B. 
"Washburne, then member of Congress from the Galena District, 
and his firm friend, then and since, accompanied him to Spring- 
field, and introduced him to Governor Yates, who at ouce of- 
fered him the position of adjutant-general, which he accepted, 
nd filled very successfully. When the first quotas from Illinois 
Had been organized, and mostly mustered into service, Adjutant- 
General Grant made a flying visit to his father at Covington, 
Kentucky, and while there. Governor Yates, finding that the 
colonel of the 21st Illinois volunteer regiment was entirely 



GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 27 

unfit for his position, removed him, and telegraphed Grant 
that he had appointed him to the vacancy. lie was on hia 
way to Springfield at that time, and immediately assumed com- 
mand. In a short time they were under most admirable disci- 
pline, and an alarm occurring in regard to a Rebel attack upon 
Quincy, Illinois, he marched them thither on foot, a distance 
of one hundred and twenty miles, a feat at that time considered 
most extraordinary. 

The first service to which the 21st Illinois was assigned, was 
to guard the Hannibal and St. Joseph railroad. Several regi- 
ments having been ordered to this service, it was necessary that 
one of the regimental commanders should become acting brig- 
adier-general, and control the whole, as no brigadier-general 
had been assigned to the command. For this office Grant, who, 
though the youngest colonel on the ground, was the only gra- 
duate of West Point, was selected, and took command at Mexico, 
Missouri, July 31, 1861. On the 9th of August, Colonel Grant 
was commissioned brigadier-general (his commission dating 
from the 17th of May), and sent with an adequate force to 
southern Missouri, where the rebel General Jeff. Thompson was 
threatening an advance. He visited Ironton, superintended the 
erection of fortifications there and at Marble creek, and, leaving 
a garrison in each place to defend it, hastened to Jefferson City, 
which was also threatened, and protected it from rebel attacks 
for ten days, when Thompson, having abandoned his purpose, 
General Grant left the Missouri capital to enter upon the com- 
mand of the important district of Cairo. 

It was while he was in southern Missouri, his biographers 
say, that he issued his famous special order concerning Mrs. 
Selvidge's pie. The incident, which illustrates somewhat forci- 
bly the quiet humor which is a marked charactei istic of tha 
general, was something like this : 



28 MEN OF OUR DAT. 

In the rapid marclies of his force in Southern Missouri their 
rations were often scanty, and not very palatable, but the region 
was poor and sparsely settled, and, for the most part, there was 
no chance of procuring food from the inhabitants of the country 
through which they were passing. At length, however, they 
emerged into a better and more cultivated section, and Lieute- 
nant Wickham, of an Indiana cavalry regiment, who was in 
command of the advanced guard of eighty men, halted at a 
farm-house of somewhat more comfortable appearance than any 
which they had passed, and entered the buildiug with two 
second lieutenants. Pretending to be Brigadier-General Grant, 
he demanded food for himself and his staff. The family, whose 
loyalty was somewhat doubtful, alarmed at the idea of the Union 
general being on their premises, hastily brought forward the 
best their house afforded, at the same time loudly protestmg 
their attachment to the Union cause. The lieutenants ate their 
jU, and, offering to compensate their hosts, were told that there 
was nothing to pay ; whereupon they went on their way, chuck- 
ling at their adroitness in getting so good a dinner for nothing. 
Soon after. General Grant, who had halted his army for a short 
rest a few miles further back, came up, and being rather favor- 
ably impressed with the appearance of the farm-house, rode up 
to the door and asked them if they would cook him a meal. 
The woman, who grudged the food already furnished to the 
self-styled general and his staff, replied gruffly, " No ! General 
Grant and his staff have just been here, and eaten every thing 
in the house, except one pumpkin-pie." 

"Ah !" said Grant ; " what is your name ?" 

" Selvidge," answered the woman. 

Tossing her a half-dollar, the general asked, " Will you keep 
that pie until I send an officer for it ?" 

" I will," said the woman. 



GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 29 

The general and staff rode on, and soon a camping ground 
was selected, and the regiments were notified that there would 
be a grand parade at half-past six for orders. This was unusual, 
and neither officers nor men could imagine what was coming. 
The parade was formed, however, ten columns deep, and a quar- 
ter of a mile in length. After the usual review, the assistant 
adjutant-general read the following : 

"Headquarters, Army in the Field. 
"Special Order, No. . 

"Lieutenant Wickham, of the Indiana Cavalry, having on 
this day eaten every thing in Mrs. Selvidge's house, at the cross- 
ing of the Ironton and Pocahontas and Black river and Cape 
Girardeau roads, except one pumpkin pie. Lieutenant Wickham 
is hereby ordered to return with an escort of one hundred 
cavalry, and eat that pie also. 

"U. S. GEANT, 

"Brigadier-general commanding." 

The attempt to evade this order was useless, and at seven 
o'clock the lieutenant filed out of camp with his hundred men, 
amid the cheers of the whole army. The escort witnessed the 
eating of the pie, the whole of which the lieutenant succeeded 
in devouring, and returned to camp. 

The post of Cairo, the headquarters of the district to the 
command of which General Grant was now ordered, was one, 
from its position, of great importance to the Union cause. It 
commanded both the Ohio and the Upper Mississippi, and was 
the depot of supplies for an extensive region above, and subse- 
quently below. Grant's command extended along the shores 
of the Mississippi as far as Cape Girardeau, and on the Ohio to 
the mouth of Green river, and included western Kentucky. 
That State, at this time, was trying to maintain a neutral posi- 
tion, favoring neither the Union nor the rebels, a position 
which was as absurd as it was soon found to be impossible. 



80 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

The rebels were the first to cross the lines, and take possession 
of the important towns of Columbus and Hickman, on the 
Mississippi, and Bowling Green, on the Green river, all of 
which they fortified. General Grant was apprized of these vio- 
lations of Kentucky's professed neutrality, and as they afforded 
him ample justification for occupying positions within the 
State, he quietly sent a body of troops, on the 6th of September, 
up the Ohio to Paducah, a town at the mouth of the Tennessee, 
and took possession of it at the time when the secessionists 
there were looking for the entry of the rebel troops, who were 
inarching to occupy it. The rage of these enemies of the coun- 
try can be better imagined than described. Eebel flags were 
flaunted in the faces of our troops, and they were told that they 
should not long retain possession of the town. 

This did not, however, in the least disturb the equanimity of 
General Grant. He issued a proclamation to the inhabitants in- 
forming them of his reasons for taking possession of the town, 
and that he was prepared to defend the citizens against the en- 
emy ; and added, significantly, that he had nothing to do with 
opinions, but should deal only with armed rebellion, and its 
aiders and abettors. 

On the 25th of September he dispatched a force to Smithland 
at the mouth of the Cumberland river, and took possession of 
that town also. The principal avenues through which the re- 
hela had obtained supplies of food, clothing, arms, and ammuni- 
tion, from the North, were thus effectually closed. 

When General Grant was assigned to the command at Cairo, 
General McClernand's brigade and some other troops were 
added to his own brigade. Having taken possession of Paducah 
and Smithland, he now began to turn his attention to Colum- 
bus, Kentucky, an important position, held by the rebel Major- 
General Polk (a former bishop of the Protestant Episcopal 



GENERAL ULYSSRS SIMPSON" GRANT, 81 

Chnrcli), with a force of twenty thousand men. lie had nearly 
completed his arrangements for attacking this post, wlien the 
Government ordered him to send five of his regiments to St. 
Louis. This left him too weak to make the attack with any hope 
of success. 

On the 16th of October, General Grant, having learned that 
the rebel General Jeff. Thompson was approaching Pilot Knob> 
Missouri, and evidently purposing an extensive raid through 
southeastern Missouri, ordered fifteen hundred men, under 
Colonel Plummer, then stationed at Cape Girardeau, to move 
towards Fredericktown, Missouri, by way of Jackson and Dal- 
las, forming a junction at the latter place with Colonel Carlin, 
who had been ordered| to move with three thousand men from 
another point, and, pursuing Thompson, to defeat and rout his 
lorce. The expeditions were successful. Thompson was found 
on the 21st of October, not far from Dallas, on the Greenville 
road, and, after an action of two and a half hours, defeated and 
routed Avith very heavy loss. Colonel Plummer captured in 
this engagement forty-two prisoners and one twelve-pounder. 

By this expedition, General Grant ascertained the position 
and strength of Jeff. Thompson's forces, and learned also that 
the rebels were concentrating a considerable force at Belmont, 
Missouri, nearly opposite Columbus, Kentucky, with a view to 
blockade the Mississippi river, and to move speedily upon his 
position at Cairo. Having received orders to that effect from 
his superior ofl&cers, General Grant resolved to break up this 
camp, although aware that the rebels could be reinforced to al- 
most any extent from Columbus, Kentucky. 

On the evening of the 6th of November, General Grant em- 
barked two brigades, in all about two thousand eight hundred 
and fifty men, under his own and General McClernand's oom- 
mand, on board river steamers, and moved down the Missis- 



32 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

sippi. He liad previously detached small bodies of troops to 
threaten Columbus from different directions, and to deceive the 
rebels as to his intentions. The ruse was isuccessful, and the 
force which he commanded in person reached the vicinity of 
Belmont, and landed before the enemy had comprehended their 
intention. The Union troops, disembarking with great prompt- 
ness, marched rapidly towards the rebel camp, a distance of 
about two and a half miles, and, forcing their way through a 
dense abatis and other obstructions, charged through the camp, 
capturing their camp equipage, artillery, and small-arms, and 
burned the tents, blankets, etc. They also took a large number 
of prisoners. The rebel force at the camp was not far from 
4000, but General Polk, learning of the attack, sent over as re- 
inforcements eight regiments, or somewhat more than 4000 
more troops, under the command of Generals Pillow and Cheat- 
ham, and finally crossed the river himself and took command. 
General Grant having accomplished all, and more than he ex- 
pected, and being aware that Belmont was covered by the bat- 
teries at Columbus, and that heavy reinforcements could be read- 
ily sent from thence, made no attempt to hold the position, but 
withdrew in good order. On their way to their transports, the 
Union troops were confronted by the fresh rebel force under 
Polk's command, and a severe battle ensued, during which a 
considerable number of the rebel prisoners made their escape ; 
and there were heavy losses in killed and wounded on both 
sides, the Union loss amounting to nearly one hundred killed, 
and four hundred or five hundred wounded and missing, the 
larger part of whom were prisoners. "What was the exact rebel 
loss has never transpired, but it is known to have been larger 
than this, the number of prisoners alone exceeding the total 
Union loss. The Union troops at length succeeded in reaching 
their transports and re-embarking, under the protection of the 



GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 33 

gunboats Tyler and Lexington, wliicli had convoyed them, 
bringing with them two cannon which they had captured, and 
spiking two others, which they were obliged to abandon. 

On the 20th of December, General Halleck, who was then in 
command of the western department, reorganized the districts 
of his command, and enlarged the district of Cairo, including in 
it all the southern portion of Illinois, all of Kentucky west of 
the Cumberland river, and the southern counties of Missouri, 
and appointed Brigadier-General Grant commander of the new 
district. The large numbers of troops newly mustered in, which 
were pouring into the district, kept the commander and his sub- 
ordinate offiLcers very busy for five or six wrecks in organizing, 
training, and distributing them to the points where their ser- 
vices were required. Desirous of testing the capacity and en- 
durance of his raw troops, for the severe work which Avas be- 
fore them, Brigadier-General Grant made, on the 1-ith of Janu- 
ary, 1862, a reconnoissance in force into southeastern j\Iissouri, 
which proved successful in all respects. He next, while keep- 
ing up a feint of attacking Columbus, Kentucky, prepared to 
co-operate with the gunboat flotilla, under the command of Flag 
Officer A. H. Foote, in an attack upon the two rebel forts on the 
Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. Forts Henry and Donelson. 
This attack was first suggested by that able officer, General 
Charles F. Smith, who died shortly after the battle of Shiloh, 
but it was pressed upon General Halleck, then in command of 
the Department of the Mississippi, by General Grant, with such 
pertinacity and earnestness, that it was finally ordered by that 
officer. The attack on Fort Henry, a small but strong work on 
the Tennessee river, was first in the order of time, and General 
Grant's part in it was delayed by the condition of the roads so 
mucli that General Tilghman, who was in command had time 

to send off most of his troops to Fort Donelson, and surrendered 
3 



iJ4 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

the remainder to Flag-officer Foote after a brief action, before 
General Grant readied the immediate vicinity of the fort. 

Grant proceeded immediately to attack the much more con- 
siderable fortress of Donelson, on the Cumberland, which here 
approaches within a few miles of the Tennessee. This fortress had 
a garrison of fifteen or sixteen thousand rebel troops, and was 
not a remarkably strong work, though from its position it was 
somewhat difficult to carry by assault. Grant had about 16,000 
troops Avith him, most of whom had not been in any action, and 
the number was insufficient to invest so large a fort properly. 
He was reluctant, however, to await the coming of the gun- 
boats, which had carried off the glory at Fort Henry, and hence 
commenced operations at once, and carried some of the out- 
works. The gunboats came up on tlie morning of the 1-lth 
(the Carondelet having arrived the previous day, and made a 
short assault, but without particular result), and went into 
action, while an attack was made by the troops on the land- 
side. Unfortunately, the best gunboats were soon disabled, 
and Flag-officer Foote himself wounded, and they were com- 
pelled to withdraw ; and the land attack Avas not simultaneous, 
or forcibly delivered. The assault upon, or siege of a fort, was 
new business to the national troops, and their commander had 
had but little experience in it ; but he resolved to besiege the 
enemy. The next morning, however, before the arrangements 
for the siege were fully completed, the rebels made a sortie, 
broke the Union line, and captured two batteries of artillery. 
The Union troops rallied, and retook most of their guns ; but 
the conflict was of uncertain issue, and could have been easily 
turned in lavor of cither side, when General Grant, who had 
been coolly looking on, ordered General Charles F. Smith's 
division to charge the enemy. The order was obeyed with 
great spirit by the veteran officer, and General Grant followed 



GENERAL ULVSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 35 

it by ordering up Lew. Wallace's division, which had broken 
in the morning, but which now charged bravely at the other 
end of the line. These divisions gained a positio'n within the 
outer lines of the fort ; and Generals Pillow and Floyd, who 
were the senior rebel generals in command, were convinced 
that the fort would be captured, and insisted on making their 
escape. General Buckner protested, but in vain. They fled 
before daylight, taking a few troops with them ; and Buckner, 
who had been at West Point with Grant, sent a flag of truce, 
on the morning of February 16th, to the Union headquarters, 
asking for an armistice, and the appointment of commissioners 
to agree upon terms of capitulation. Grant's answer has become 
historic, as it deserved. It was : — " No terms, other than uncon- 
ditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to 
move immediately upon ^^our works." This brought the haughty 
Buckner to terms, and though protesting against " the ungenerous 
and unchivalrous terms," he surrendered at once ; and 14,(323 
prisoners, and a large amount of materials of war, were de- 
livered over to the Union general. This success was due 
mainly to three causes — the superior fighting qualities of 
Grant's force, though raw troops ; the calmness and coolness 
of the general himself, which enabled him to discern the 
favorable moment for a bold and decisive stroke when the con- 
flict was evenly poised ; and the cowardice and weakness of 
the rebel generals. As a siege, or a systematic action for the 
reduction of a fort, it would not bear criticism ; and we doubt 
not the general himself is as fully aware of this, and would 
now criticise it as severely as any one else. 

After the capture of Donelson, and the occupation of Clarks- 
ville and Nashville by Buell's forces, General Grant came near 
falling into disfavor with General Halleck for trespassing upon 
General Buell's command. He was however speedily forgiven, 



86 MEN OF OUR DAr. 

and sent forward to the vicinity of Corinth, Mississippi, to 
select a camp for his army, and bring it up to a suitable 
point for giving battle to the rebels. There can be no question 
that Corinth should have been the jDlace selected, and that, for 
two or three weeks, it might have been seized and held without 
difficulty. Failing in this, through manifold delays, the camp 
should have been on the north bank of the Tennessee. Instead 
of this, by some blunder it was located near the south bank of 
the river, at Pittsburg Landing, or Shiloh Churcli, and the 
troops as they came up were allowed to choose their locations 
very much as they pleased ; and though they were less than 
twenty miles from the enemy's camp, no patrols or pickets were 
maintained in the direction of the enemy, nor any .breastworks 
erected ; and all was ease and unconcern. General Grant's 
headquarters were at Savannah, six miles below, and the troops 
as they arrived were sent forward. Meantime, the rebels were 
at Corinth, nnder the command of the ablest general of their 
army. General Albert Sydney Johnston, and, having acccumu- 
lated a large force, were ready to take the offensive. Grant had 
been promoted to be major-general of volunteers, dating from 
February 16th, 1862, the day of the surrender of Fort Donel- 
son, and had been in command of the district of West Ten- 
nessee from March 5th ; but he seems not to have had any pre- 
vision of the magnitude of the coming battles, if indeed his 
easy victory at Fort Donelson, had not inspired him with a 
doubt whether there would be a battle at all. lie evidently 
did not consider it imminent, for ho had sent word to Buell 
that he need not hasten. It was to this picturesque, but de- 
cidedly numilitary collection of camps, that the rebel general, 
A. S. Johnston, one of the ablest soldiers of the present cen- 
tury, was approaching, with a force of over 40,000 men, on 
the 2d of April, 18G2, and anticipating, as he had a right to 



GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 37 

• 

do, an easy victory. Tho heavy rain and deep inud delayed 
him for three days within six or eight mile.-' of the Union 
camp, but no one discovered his approach. On the morning of 
the 6th of April lie attacked Prentiss's division; and though 
they made a gallant resistance, for men utterly surprised, they 
■were soon broken, and many of them taken prisoners. Sher- 
man's division held their ground firmly for a time, and finally, 
by falling back a short distance, obtained a better position, 
from which they were only partially pushed back during the 
day. Hurlburt's and W. H. L. Wallace's divisions were par- 
tially broken, but fought sturdily, yet despairingly, through, 
the day. The fugitives and deserters were numerous, and the 
whole force was driven back for nearly two and a half miles, 
till they only occupied about half a mile on the river bank. 
The outlook seemed a gloomy one, but the occasion was one 
which developed all the great qualities of Grant. On the field 
from ten o'clock, A. M., directing, with the utmost coolness and 
imperturbability, the movements of the troops — ordering the 
gathering of the scattered artillery, and massing it where it 
could be used most effectually upon the enemy — availing him- 
self of the gunboats as soon as possible, to protect by their fire 
the position of his troops — noticing every thing that was trans- 
piring, and yet to all human appearance the calmest and most 
self-possessed man on the field — his conduct during the battle 
merits only the highest praise. Toward the close of the day, 
an offi.cer said to him, " Does not the prospect begin to look 
gloomy ?" " Not at all," was his quiet reply ; " they can't 
force our lines around these batteries to-night — it is too late. 
Delay counts every thing wnth us. To-morrow we shall attack 
them with fresh troops, and drive them, of course !" He was 
right. The enemy, exhausted, and sufi'ering from the heavy 
fire of the batteries and gunboats, could not dislodge them that 



88 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

night ; and during the night Lew. Wallace's division crossed 
the river, and Buell came up ready to cross. The contest 
of the next day, April 7th, though a sharp one, was in favor 
of the Union troops from the beginning, and by a little after 
noon the rebels, who had lost their commanding general the 
day before, were in full retreat. 

The losses were about equal, and amounted in both armies, 
in killed, wounded, missing, and prisoners, to nearly 80,000. 
Grant's army held their position, and the rebels fell back ; the 
former were therefore entitled to claim it as a victory, but it was 
a costly one. General Halleck now took the field in person, and 
under the pretence of making Grant his second in command, 
virtually took all command from him. This led to a coolness 
between the two, and Grant was for a time greatly' depressed in 
spirits. He took part in the siege of Corinth, but was constantly 
hampered by the dilatoriness of his chief. After General Hal- 
leck Avas called to "Washington as general-in-chief, Grant was 
in command of the Army of the Tennessee, but was unable to 
do much until September, Bragg and Buell being engaged in 
the race into Kentucky and back. He planned, however, the 
movements which resulted in the battle of luka, September 19, 
where he commanded in person ; and in the battles of Corinth, 
October 3d and 4th, which were fought by General Rosecrans ; 
and in the battle of the Hatchie, October 5th, which was under 
his immediate direction. In the autumn he made his head- 
quarters in Memphis, where he soon, by his stringent and de- 
cided orders, changed that state of affairs, which had led the 
rebels to say, that Memphis was more valuable to them in 
Union hands than in those of their own people. 

The popular clamor throughout the country, and particularly 
in the West, was for the opening of the Mississippi. Yicksburg 
on the north, and Port Hudson on the south, blockaded all 



GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 89 

transit up or clown this great river, so long tbc free cLannel of 
western produce and truHlc. The efforts which had been mado 
lo break through these obstructions since the war commenced, 
had all failed, from the inherent strength of the fortifications, 
the difficulty of assailing them effectually in front, and the 
strength of their garrisons. General Grant had turned his at- 
tention to the solution of this great problem, almost as soon as 
the command of the Department of the Tennessee was assigned 
to him, in October, 1862. He was aware of the formidable char- 
acter of the fortifications of Vicksburg, and that they had been, 
during 1862, strengthened by every method and device known 
to engineering skill. For ten miles and more, the eastern 
shore of the Mississippi, above and below the city, as well as all 
the adjacent heights, Chickasaw Bluffs, Walnut Bluffs, Haines' 
Bluff, and the shores of the Yazoo, were covered with fortifica- 
tions, and the rear of the city also. At many points, these 
stood tier above tier, and were capable of pouring a concen- 
trated fire upon any object in the river, which it seemed as if 
nothing built by human hands could resist. His first plan 
was to distribute his stores and supplies along the Mississippi 
Central railroad, and then moving rapidly down that road, as- 
sault and carry Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, and march 
thence swiftly upon the rear of Vicksburg, sending General 
W. T. Sherman from Memphis, with a considerable force to 
demonstrate simultaneously on Chickasaw Bluffs, at the north- 
west of the city. 

This plan, which seemed the most feasible one, was defeated 
by the cowardice and treachery of Colonel Murphy, who, Avith 
a force of 1,000 men, was in command at Holly Springs, Miss- 
issippi, Grant's main depot of supplies, and surrendered with- 
out attempting any defence, on the 20th of December, 1862, 
to a rebel force slightly larger than his own. The rebels hastily 



40 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

destroyed the supplies, valued at §4,000,000, aud evacuated the 
place. But Graut could not go on with his expedition, and 
unfortunately he was unable to apprise General Sherman, and 
prevent his departure ; and after a succession of disastrous as- 
saults upon the bluffs, finding that General Grant had foiled to 
come to time, that general was obliged to withdraw with heavy 
losses. But Grant was not the man to give up an enterprise 
on which he had set his heart, in consequence of a single re- 
pulse. Renewing his stock of supplies, he next turned his 
attention to some plan, as yet he hardly knew what, for carry- 
ing the fortress, from the front. He moved his army to Young's 
Point, Louisiana, a short distance above Yicksburg. He soon 
found that there was no hope of reaching the rear of the city 
by a movement from the east bank of the Mississippi above it. 
A line of hills admirably adapted, and as admirably improved 
for defence, stretched from Vicksburg to Haines' Bluff, on the 
Yazoo, twelve miles above the entrance of that stream into the 
Mississippi. The laud in front of these hills is a deep marsh, 
neither land nor water. There remained then but two courses, 
either to enter the Yazoo above Haines' Bluff, and coming 
down to the east of that fortified point, attack the city in rear, 
or finding some mode of passing or evading the batteries on 
the Mississippi, land some distance below, and approach it from 
the south. There was also a faint hope that by completing a 
canal, begun the previous summer, across the neck of land 
formed by the bend of the Mississippi, and thus creating a new 
channel for that river, the Union vessels might be able to pass 
below the city, but the fact that the lower end of the canal was 
exposed to the fire of some of the heaviest batteries, made this 
project less feasible, and the flood destroyed iheir works, and 
partially filled the canal with silt and mud. 

The attempts to gain the rear of the city by way of the Yazoo 



GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT, 41 

were equally imsucccssful, botli tlirongh tlio Old Yazoo Pass, 
and subsequently by a more circuitous route through Steele's 
Bayou, Black Bayou, Dutch creek, Deer creek, Eolling Fork 
and Sunflower river ; the rebels having planted earthworks and 
batteries at such points as to prevent progress by either. 

Turning his attention then to the methods of reaching the 
Mississippi below Vicksburg, two routes were attempted on the 
west side of the river and both foiled ; one was by Lake Provi- 
dence and the Tensas river, a tortuous route and only practica- 
ble for vessels of light draft ; the other by way of certain Loui- 
siana bayous, through which in flood time it was possible to 
reach the Tensas, Ked, and Mississippi rivers. Before the vessels 
could reach their destination, the water fell, and even the steam- 
ers of lightest draught could not get through. A small quan- 
tity of supplies was forwarded by the Lake Providence route, 
but . nothing more. General Grant now determined to march 
his troops by land down the west side of the river as soon as the 
roads should be sufhciently dry. But it was necessary that a 
part of the gunboats and iron clads should be below Yicksburg, 
both in order to ferry the troops across the river and to engage 
the batteries at Grand Gulf, and a considerable amount of sup- 
plies must also be sent down by transports. These must all 
run past the terrible batteries of Vicksburg. 

Admiral Porter undertook this heroic and daring expedition, 
and conducted it successfully, running past the batteries with 
five or six gunboats and sixteen or eighteen transports, in two 
divisions, on different nights. Two of the transports were 
burned, but none of the gunboats were seriously injured. 

The overland march of the troops occupied thirty days, in 
traversing a distance of seventy miles, to Hard Times, a hamlet 
of Louisiana nearly opposite Grand Gulf. The squadron were 
ready and attacked Grand Gulf, but could not silence its bat- 



42 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

teries. That niglit both the squadron and transport 6 ran past 
the batteries, and the troops marched ten miles farther, and were 
ferried over to Bruinsburg and marched rapidly from this point 
north-eastward toward Port Gibson. The thirteenth and seven- 
teenth corps encountered a considerable force of the enemy, 
whom they defeated after a sharp battle, and moved on to and 
across Bayou Pierre. The next day it was ascertained that 
Grand Gulf, which had been flanked by this movement, had 
been evacuated, and General Grant repaired thither with a small 
escort, and made arrangements to make it his base of supplies 
for a time. These arrangements occupied nearly a week. By 
his orders, as nearly as possible simultaneously with the landing 
of the two corps at Bruinsburg, General Sherman had made a 
strong demonstration upon Haines' Bluff and the Yazoo, and 
had thus attracted the attention of the rebels toward that quar- 
ter, where they believed the entire Union array were concen- 
trated, and prevented them from opposing their landing below. 

This being accomplished, Sherman's troops made all speed in 
marching to the rendezvous on the river, where the transports 
were in waiting to take them over to Grand Gulf. 

Before leaving Young's Point, General Grant had also 
ordered an expedition by a competent cavalry force, under the 
command of Colonel, now General Benjamin H. Grierson, to 
start from Lagrange, at the junction of the Mississippi Central 
and Memphis and Charleston railroads, to follow the lines of the 
Mobile and Ohio and Mississippi Central railroads, and destroy 
as much of these, and the Meridian and Jackson railroad, as 
possible, — capturing and destroying also all stores, ammunition, 
locomotives, and railroad cars possible, in their route. This 
expedition was thoroughly successful, and reached Baton Eouge 
on the 1st of May, at the time Grant was fighting the battle of 
Port Gibson. Other raids were ordered about the same time 



GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 43 

from Middle Tennessee, which aided in breaking up the raih'oad 
eoniniunicatious and frustrating the plans of the rebels. 

Our space does not allow us to go into details of the subse- 
quent masterly movements by -which, while apparently threat- 
ening an immediate attack on Vicksburg from the south, the 
garrison there, under the command of General Pemberton, were 
prevented from forming a junction with GeneralJ. E.Johnston's 
troops, then in the vicinity of Jackson, nor of the battle of 
Raymond, the capture of Jackson, and the destruction of the 
property and manufactories of the rebel Government there ; the 
rapid march westward, the severe battles of Champion Hill and 
of Black Eiver bridge, and the eminenJy skilful management 
of the corps of Generals Sherman and McPherson. Suffice it 
to say,' that General Grant interposed his army between the 
forces of Johnston and Pemberton, drove the former, broken 
and routed, northward, and compelled the latter to put himself 
and his defeated army as soon as possible within the defences of 
Yicksburg ; and on the 18th the Union army sat doAvn before 
Vicksburg, having completely invested it on the l>and side and 
opened communication with their squadron and transports by 
way of Walnut Bluffs, above the river. On the 19th of May, 
and again on the 22d, General Grant ordered assaults upon the 
beleaguered city, neither of which Avere successful, except in 
gaining some ground and expediting the subsequent regular ap- 
proaches. The army now became satisfied that the stronghold 
could only be captured by a systematic siege, and General Grant 
accordingly took all precautions to make that siege effective, 
and to prevent the rebel General Johnston from approaching 
with sufficient force to raise the siege. Day by day the parallels 
were brought nearer and nearer, and finally came so near that 
the rebels could not use their cannon, while the Union artillery 
from the adjacent hills, and from the squadron, constantly show 



44 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

ered their iron hail upon the devoted city. The inhabitants and 
the rebel army dug caves in the bluflfe, and endeavored to shel- 
ter themselves from the fiery storm, but these were often pen- 
etrated by the shells from the batteries, or blown up in the 
explosion of the forts. At length, on the third of July, General 
Grant was prepared to order an assault, which could not have 
failed of success, when overtures were made for a surrender, and 
the city was delivered into the hands of the Union army on the 
4tli of July, 1863. 

It is stated that at the interview between General Grant and 
General Pemberton, after shaking hands, and a sbort silence, 
General Pemberton said : 

" General Grant, I meet you in order to arrange terms for the 
capitulation of tlie city of Vicksburg and its garrison. What 
terms do you demand?" 

" Unconditional surrender^'^ replied General Grant. 

" Unconditional surrender !" said Pemberton. " Never, so 
long as I have a man left me ! I will fight rather." 

" Then^ sir, you can continue the defence,''^ replied Grant. " Ji^ 
army has never been in a better condition for the prosecutio?i of the 
siege J"* 

During this conversation, General Pemberton was greatly agi- 
tated, trembling witb emotion from head to foot, while Grant was 
as calm and imperturbable as a May morning. After a somewhat 
protracted interview, during which General Grant, in considera- 
tion of the courage and tenacity of the garrison, explained the 
terms he was disposed to allow to them on their unconditional 
surrender ; the two generals separated, an armistice having 
been declared till morning, when the question of surrender was 
to be finally determined. The same evening General Grant; 
transmitted to General Pemberton, in writing, the propositions 
he had made during the afternoon for the disposal of the garri- 



GENERAL ULYSSES oIMPSON GEANT. 45 

son, sliould they surrender. These terms were very liberal, far 
more so than those usually acceded to a conquered garrison. 

The rebel loss in this campaign had been very great, larger 
than lias often been experienced in the campaigns of modern 
times, and utterly without precedent in the previous Iiistory of 
this continent. The number of prisoners captured by the Union 
troops, from the landing at Bruinsburg to, and including the 
surrender of Vicksburg, was 34,620, including one lieutenant- 
general and nineteen major and brigadier-generals; and 11,800 
men were killed, wounded, or deserters. There were also among 
the spoils of the campaign two hundred and eleven field-pieces, 
ninety siege guns, and 45,000 small arms. The Union losses 
liad been 943 killed, 7,095 wounded, and 537 missing, making 
a total of casualties of 8,575, and of the wounded, nearly one 
half returned to duty within a month. • 

Having disposed of his prisoners at Vicksburg, General Grant 
dispatched General Sherman with an adequate force to Jackson, 
to defeat and break up Johnston's army, and destroy the rebel 
stores collected there, in both which enterprises he was suc- 
cessful. 

During the long period of two and a quarter years since he 
had entered the army. General Grant had never sought or re- 
ceived a day's furlough. But after this great victory, and while 
the thanks of the President, the Cabinet, Congress, and the peo • 
pie, were lavished upon him without stint, he sought for a few 
days' rest with his family, and received it. His stay with them 
was brief, and he returned to his duties, descending the Missis- 
sippi — now, thanks to his skilful generalship, open to the navi- 
iiation of all nations, from its mouth to the falls of St. Anthony 
— to New Orleans, to confer with General Banks relative to the 
operations of the autumn. While here, on the 4th of Septem- 



46 MEN OF OUR DAT. 

ber, he was seriously injured by being thrown from his horse 
while reviewing the troops of General Banks' department. 

From these injuries he did not recover sufficiently to take 
the field, till late in October. Meantime, there had been bard 
fighting, as well as weary marches, and severe privations en- 
dured by the Army of the Cumberland. General Eosecrans, 
moving forward in June, had driven General Bragg, not with- 
out considerable fighting, from Tullahoma, and through south- 
ern Tennessee, into and out of Chattanooga, and, throwing a 
small garrison into that town, had marched southward to inter- 
cept Bragg's further retreat, and compel him to fight. Bragg, 
meantime, strongly reinforced from the Army of Northern Vir- 
ginia, had joined battle with liim in the valley of Chickamauga 
creek, where on the 19th and 20th of September, 1862, was 
fought one o? the great actions of the war. Though not abso- 
lutely defeated, Eosecrans had found it necessary to fall back to 
Chattanooga, which he held, though closely beleagured by 
Bragg, w^ho had compelled him to relinquish some of his most 
important communications, and drag his supplies over sixty 
miles of the worst mountain roads in the southwest. This 
measure was but temporary, however, and was about to be reme- 
died, when he was relieved of tlie command, to which General 
Thomas was assigned. General Sherman, now in the command 
of the Army of the Tennessee, was ordered up to his support, 
and two corps sent from the Army of the Potomac, under Gen- 
erals Hooker and Howard. This magnificent army was placed 
under General Grant's command, as the Military Division of 
the Mississippi. On Grant's arrival at Chattanooga, his first 
care was to open communications, and provide for full supplies 
for his soldiers, who had been on half rations for some time. 
Bragg, at this time, sent Longstreet's corps to Knoxville, to 
drive Burnside from east Tennessee, and v."av,-are of Grant's 



GEXERAL ULYSSES SIMPSOX GRANT. 47 

large reinforcements, lie proved true to his name, and on the 
21st of November, 1863, sent this arrogant message to General 
Grant by flag of truce : 

"Humanity would dictate the removal of all non-combatants 
from Chattanooga, as I am about to shell the city." 

General Grant made no reply to the threat at the moment, but 
his answer was speedily returned, and proved so effectual, that 
Bragg gave up all idea of " shelling the city" from that time 
forward. 

Sherman's Army of the Tennessee had been coming into the 
city and its vicinity, since the 15th of November, by roads 
which led to the rear, and hence had not been observed by 
Bragg's lookout ; and on the evening of the 23d of November, 
lay concealed above Chattanooga, on the north bank, and ready 
for the crossing. Then followed that admirably planned combi- 
nation of movements which reflected so much skill on Grant's 
strategic ability. General Thomas, with the Army of the 
Cumberland, marched out with all the order and stateliness of 
a grand review, and while the enemy looked on and wondered, 
seized Orchard Knob, their most advanced position, held and 
fortified it. Hooker, with his eastern troops, marching along 
the western flank of Lookout Mountain, suddenly climbed its 
steep sides, and rising from one elevation to another, drove the 
enemy up and over the crest of the mountain — the batteries 
echoing and reverberating among the mountains till, with the 
valleys below obscured by clouds and smoke, which did not rise 
to his own lofty position, he fought that battle above the clouds 
which, has been so greatly celebrated ; and Sherman advancing^ 
destroyed the railway, and captured, with but slight effort, the 
most advanced post of the enemy at the northeast. Such was 
the work of November 21tli ; that of November 2oth Avas more 
serious, but crowned with perfect success. Hooker, descending 



48 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

from tlie eastern and less precipitous slope of Lookout Moun- 
tain, some distance below Chattanooga, pursued the flying rebels 
up to the crest of Mission Eidge, and drove them from Fort 
Bragg, the southernmost of their forts crossing the Eidge. 
Sherman, by persistent pounding and repeated assaults upon 
Fort Buckner, the northernmost of their forts, had succeeded 
in drawing a considerable portion of the garrison of the central 
fort, Fort Breckinridge, to the support of the Fort Buckner 
garrison, and when, at a little past three o'clock p. ir., the signal 
guns sounded from Fort Wood, on Orchard Knob, the picked 
men of the Army of the Cumberland sprang to arms, climbed 
the precipitous sides of Mission Eidge, under a most terrific fire, 
swept through Fort Breckinridge, and drove the foe, pell mc.i, 
doAvn the farther slope of the Eidge, and Sherman's men pos- 
sessed themselves quietly of the fort, against which they had 
flung themselves so fiercely all day. No more brilliant action 
occurred during the war ; and when it was followed by a prompt 
pursuit of the enemy, and by sending Sherman with his wearied, 
but always obedient and victorious troops, to KnoxviDe, to 
compel Longstreet to raise the siege of that town, and to drive 
him among the mountains of western Virginia in midwinter, 
the admiration of the nation for Grant knew no bounds. The 

1 

President but e;xpressed the popular feeling, when he sent to the 
successful general the following telegraphic dispatch : 

'•Washington, Dec. 8, 1863. 

*' Major-Gexeral Grant : 

" Understanding that your lodgment at Chattanooga and 
Knoxvillc is now secure, I wish to tender you, and all under 
3'our command, my more than thanks — my profoundest grati- 
tude — for the skill, courage, and perseverance with which you 
and they, over so great difficulties, have effected that important 
object. God bless you all !" 

" A. LINCOLN." 



GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 49 

On tbc 17tli of December, 1803, Congress by joint resolutioa 
tendered him the national gratitude and provided for the 
preparation of a gold medal with suitable emblems, devices, and 
inscriptions, to be presented to him in token of the national 
sense of his services. The Legislatures of the loyal States vied 
with each other in their resolutions of thanks and in their 
grants of funds, etc., while many private individuals added their 
gifts. The Senate at the beginning of its session had confirmed, 
almost by acclamation, the rank of major-general in the regular 
army which had been bestowed upon him by the President in 
the summer, his commission dating from July 4, 1863. 

The recipient of these numerous honors seemed in no wise 
elated by them ; he was as simple and unpretending in his man- 
ners, as reticent on all political topics, and as averse to any 
thing looking like display, as when he was a farmer at St. Louis, 
or a clerk- at Galena. 

There was yet much to be done to bring his army at Chatta- 
nooga into good condition. Ilis communications with his bases 
at Nashville and Louisville must be repaired and strengthened, 
his men better fed, supplies accumulated at Chattanooga and 
Nashville, for the campaigns in the not distant future in Georgia. 
In concert with his tried friend and trusty lieutenant, Sherman, 
he planned an expedition into the heart of the enemy's territory 
at Meridian, Mississippi, to be met by one from Memphis, down 
the Mobile and Ohio railroad, which, by thoroughly breaking 
their lines of communication, should cripple their movements 
in the future, and during the months of January, while General 
Sherman was completing the details of this enterprise, he 
visited and inspected in person all the posts and stations of his 
widely extended command. The Meridian expedition was but 
a partial success, owing to the failure of the cavalry portion of 



60 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

it to co-operate efifectivelj ; but it seriously embarrassod the 
rebels in their subsequent operations. 

While it was in progress, Major-General Grant was summoned 
to Washington, where he was called to assume new and still 
higher responsibilities. Congress had resolved to revive the 
grade of lieutenant-general, which had been borne as a full rank 
only by General Washington (General Scott's title being only 
by brevet) ; and a law to that effect having been passed, the 
President at once conferred the rank upon Major-General Grant 
and the Senate confirmed it. The commission bore the date of 
March 2d, 186-i, and on the 9th of that month the President 
delivered it to him in person, accompanied by a brief address 
expressive of his own pleasure in doing him such an honor, and 
a word of monition as to the great responsibilities which it 
would devolve upon him. On the 12th of March, the President, 
by official order, invested the lieutenant-general with the com- 
mand of tlie armies of the United States; at the same time ap- 
pointing, at Lieutenant-Gcneral Grant's instance, Major-General 
W. T. Sherman, commander of the Military Division of the 
Mississippi ; General McPherson, commander of the Army of the 
Tennessee, and General Halleck, hitherto general in chief, chief 
of staff of the army, to reside in Washington. 

The subsequent seven or eight weeks were busy ones for 
General Grant. The various commands of the army were to be 
visited, a simultaneous campaign for the two armies arranged 
with General Sherman, supplies collected and troops accumula- 
ted to a far greater extent than at any previous time ; the army 
corps to be strengthened and some of them reorganized, and all 
preparations made for a campaign which should end only with 
the war. The armies of the eastern division, which were to 
operate against the rebel General Lee, he proposed to command 
m person ; those of the west were to be directed by Major- 



GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT, 51 

General Sherman. His own especial command, as reorganized 
under his supervision, consisted of; first, the army of the Poto- 
mac, numbering in all 130,000 men, though at the commence- 
ment of the campaign, a part were not yet present ; this was 
commanded by General George G. Meade, an able and experi- 
enced officer, and its corps commanders were Hancock, Warren, 
Sedgwick, and Burnside. It confronted Lee's army from 
the north side of the Rapidan. Second, the army of the James, 
consisting of about 30,000 troops, under the command of Major- 
General Butler, with General Gillmore as a subordinate ; this 
was in a position to strike either at Richmond or Petersburg. 
Third, the army of the Shenandoah, under the command of 
Major-General Franz Sigel, then about 17,000 strong, but subse- 
quently increased by the addition of the nineteenth army corps, 
from the Department of the Gulf. Besides these there was a strong 
cavalry force, under the command of the young but efficient 
general, Philip H. Sheridan. The forward movement was 
made on the 4th of May, 186-1, and resulted in the bloody but 
indecisive battles of the Wilderness, May 5 and 6, 186-1, a for- 
ward movement by the left flank to Spottsylvania, and a series 
of battles there. May 8-21, hardly more decisive, and not less 
bloody than the preceding; another flank movement to and 
across the North Anna, and two days of hard fighting, May 
21-25 ; a recrossing of the North Anna, a flanking of the enemy 
and crossing of the Pamunkey, and the battle of Tolopotomoy, 
May 28 and 29, and of Bethesda church. May 30. Another at- 
tempt to surprise the enemy by a flank movement, brought the 
two armies face to face at Cold Harbor, one of the battle grounds 
of 1862, but this time with the positions of the two armies re- 
versed. 

Finding himself unable to gain the flank of Lee's army — that 
general moving on interior and shorter lines, and though with 



52 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

> 

an inferior force, being fully bis equal in military strategy- 
Lieutenant -General Grant now took the resolution of throwing 
tlie Army of the Potomac south of the James, and assailing 
Petersburg and Richmond from that direction. His losses in 
this month of battles had been frightful, nearly 60,000 men 
1)eing hors du combat, either among the slain, wounded, or pris- 
oners. He had inflicted heavy losses on the enemy, but they 
were not equal to his own, as their numbers were materially 
less ; but, with that pertinacity and resolution which is so 
striking an element of his character, he would not relax his 
efforts in the least, and was determined to pound away upon his 
foes till he had ground them to powder. Crossing the James 
successfully, he commenced a series of assaults on Petersburg, 
but without any considerable success. The construction of 
siege lines around the city, to the east and south ; the mining 
of one of its forts ; demonstrations alternately toward the Wel- 
don and the Southsiae railroads, followed ; but with no con- 
siderable success. His cavalry, under Sheridan, "Wilson, and 
Kautz, were kept actively employed in raids upon the enemy's 
lines of communication. The army of the Shenandoah had 
made lamentable failures under Sigel and Hunter, and their 
adversary, Early, had descended into Maryland, threatened 
Baltimore and Washington, and only been driven from the 
vicinity of the capital, by the hurried advance of troops from 
the Army of the Potomac and the Department of the Gulf. 
The Government, always in terror of attacks upon the capital, 
clamored loudly for protection ; but while General Grant would 
not farther weaken his force around Petersburg, he sent a man to 
command the Department of the Shenandoah, who was himself 
worth an army corps. General Sheridan, in a succession of 
well-planned and hard-fought battles, disposed of General Early, 
.and subsequently raided through the whole Shenandoah and 



GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 53 

Luray valleys, laying them desolate, for the aid, shelter and 
support they had given to the bands of guerrillas. The autumn 
and early winter was consumed in attempts to cut the lines of 
communication from the west and southwest of Petersburg and 
Richmond, by which the rebel armies were supplied. The 
Virginia and Tennessee road was destroyed by Gillem and 
Stoncman; the Manassas and Lynchburg roads, the James Eiver 
canal and the slackwater navigation broken up, and the sup- 
plies in the warehouses destroyed by Sheridan ; and at each 
effort along Hatcher's Run some ground was gained, and a 
nearer approach made to the only artery of communication 
which remained, the Southside railroad. This was accom- 
plished at a heavy cost of life, but there was an advance which 
betokened the speedy coming of the end. 

Meantime, Admiral Farragut had, in the grandest of naval 
battles, defeated the squadron and captured the forts which 
defended Mobile Bay ; Sherman had, after a campaign of great se- 
verity, captured Atlanta, and partially destroyed it — had moved 
onward, with his vast columns, to the sea — had captured Savan- 
nah — and, turning northward, had swept, as with the besom of 
destruction, South Carolina, compelling the surrender of Charles- 
ton, and the other principal towns of South and North Caro- 
lina ; the forts which had protected the harbor of AVilmington, 
North Carolina, had succumbed, on a second attack, to the 
prowess of Admiral Porter and General Terr\^ — and AVilming- 
ton itself had fallen before Terry and Schofield ; General 
Thomas had driven Hood out of Tennessee, with such terrible 
slaughter that he could not assemble another arm3^ 

All things portended the speedy collapse of this formidable 
rebellion. Grant now moved forward; and after some hard 
fighting, Sheridan, under his direction, carried the strong po- 
sition of Five Forks, and drove those of the enemy who were 



54 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

uot slain or captured, westward, where they could not aid ia 
continuing the defence of Lee's already weakened lines. April 
2d, 1865, the line of the Southside railroad was thoroughly 
broken ; April od, the cities of Petersburg and Eichmond were 
evacuated and surrendered. The flying rebel army, bereft of 
supplies, hungry and despairing, were pursued unremittingly ; 
and on the 9th of April, General Lee surrendered to General 
Grant the remnant of the Army of Virginia. Then came the 
entrance into Richmond ; the President's visit there ; and the 
sad scene of the assassination of the President, whose fate 
General Grant only escaped by the providence of God, which 
called him suddenly to Philadelphia that night. The news of 
the proposed terms of capitulation offered to Johnston by 
General Sherman, coming just at this juncture, roused, on the 
part of the Government, such strong disapproval, that General 
Grant immediately went to Raleigh, and by wise and adroit 
management saved his friend from disgrace, and the country 
/rom any evils which might have resulted from Sherman's 
terms. 

The speedy end of the war ensued, and General Grant's 
duties thenceforward were rather administrative than military. 
He made a tour through the Southern States in 1865, and sub- 
seqently flying visits tb the northern cities. The gratitude of 
the people for his eminent services followed him. A residence 
was presented to him at Galena, another in Philadelphia, and 
another still in Washington. The merchants of New York 
raised a hundred thousand dollars as an indication of their .sense 
of his great services to the country. On the 2oth of July, 1866, 
Congress created the grade of full general, hitherto unknown to 
our country, and stipulating that it should lapse after his death 
or resignation of it, conferred it upon him. In the summer of 
1866, by express command of the President, General Grant ac- 



GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 55 

companied him in liis -western tour; but he sought in vain to 
commit him to any approval of his cause and policy. Subse- 
quentl}^, in August. 18G7, when Mr, Johnson's long and ill-dis- 
guised hatred of the Secretary of War l)roke out into hostility, 
and he demanded Mr. Stanton's resignation, on the refusal of 
tliat officer to resign, Mr. Johnson suspended him from office 
and appointed General Grant Secretary ad interim. The general 
accepted the position, managed the office wisely and well, and 
when the Senate decided that Mr. Stanton's removal was un- 
justifiable, surrendered it at once to the Secretary. This act 
excited Mr. Johnson's anger, and he sought, in a scries of letters, 
but with ins usual ill-success, to fasten upon the general charges 
of insincerity, inveracity, and treachery. 

General Grant is not and has never professed to be a politi- 
cian, lie is not an ambitious man, and in one whom the politi- 
cians find it very hard to use ; for, though he has wavy clear 
and well defined opinions on the political questions of the day, 
he is extremely reticent and has a way of baffling all attempts 
to maintain a political conversation with him, which almost 
drives the newspaper correspondents mad. That he favors the 
reconstruction policy of Congress, thinks the colored population 
of the reconstructed States should enjoy the privilege of suffrage, 
and all other political rights to which the whites are entitled, is 
we suppose, no secret. 

He is the favorite candidate of the Republican party for the 
Presidencv, and yet though in thorough sympathy with that 
party, he has never sought the nomination for that great office, 
or in any Avay manifested the slightest pleasure at the idea of 
receiving it. Ilis sound judgment of character, his remarkable 
skill in always putting " the right man in the right place," his 
superior administrative talents, and his calm and cool tempera 



56 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

ment eminently fit liim for a station of sucli responsibility and 
trial. 

In person, General Grant is somewhat below the common 
height, neither spare nor stout ; of great powers of endurance, 
and of uniformly good health. He is a great smoker, likes a 
game of billiards, and now as in boyhood, delights in a good 
horse. He is strictly temperate,^ quiet, sedate, and reticent; 

* Great efforts have been made to fasten upon the general, the charge 
of frequent or habitual drunkenness ; and the President is said to have 
charged that he was intoxicated most of the time during their journey to 
Chicago, commonly known as Mr. Johnson's " swinging round the circle." 
We have the strongest evidence that these reports are false, and in some 
instances they were undoubtedly prompted by malice. We have alluded to 
the fact that, while in the army in California and Oregon, he did drink 
freely. But on his return to the States, he abandoned this habit, and the 
testimony of his classmates and friends, Coppee, Buell, Reynolds, of his 
venerable father, of Hon. E. B. Washburne, and Hon. Henry Wilson, is 
perfectly conclusive as to the fact that he has never resumed the practice 
of indulging in intoxicating drinks. 

The following incidents, which appeared in the "The Nation,'' may serve 
to show on what insufficient and erroneous grounds these reports are often 
based. Mr. Olmstead and Rev. Mr. Knapp were, at the time referred, to Sec- 
retary and Assistant-Secretary of the United States Sanitary Commission: 

" To the Editor of the Nation : — 

"One day, in the spring of 18G3, Mr. Frederick Knapp and myself were 
the guests of General Grant, at his headquarters, on a steamboat lying at 
Milliken's Bend, a few miles above Yicksburg. A curtain liad been hung 
in sudi a way as to give a certain degree of seclusion to the after-part of 
the main cabin, and when we rose from dinner we were asked to sit with 
the general behind the screen, where there was a writing table with pitcher 
and glasses. The general then told us that he had a few hours before 
received unfavorable intelligence from General Sherman's expedition up 
the Sunflower. Inviting our inquiries, and replying to all we thought it 
proper to make, with an unexpectedly generous freedom and painstaking 



GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 67 

likes simple ways, and simple food; abliors ostentation; can 
converse well and clearly, but prefers to listen rather than to 

thoroughness of explanation, he was gradually led into a comprehensive 
review of the existing conditions of his campaign, which it was easy to see 
were of the very gravest character. We were impressed as much by tha 
remarkably methodical clearness of the narration as by the simple candor 
and ingenuousness with which it was given to us who, the day before, had 
been strangers to him. He took up several hypotheses and suggestions, 
and analyzed them in such a way as to make prominent the uncertainties 
and uncontrollable elements which were involved in them, and T could not but 
think, so musing and quietly reflective was his mannner, and yet so exact 
and well arranged his expressions, that he was simply repeating a process 
of " thinking it out," in order to assure himself that he fully comprehended 
and gave just weight to all the important elements of some grand military 
problem, the solution of which he was about to undertake. 

" (The last attempt to attack Vicksburg on the north ended that day, and 
a few days after our interview the first step was taken looking toward the 
approach from the south ; but of this no hint was given us, and we only 
heard of it the next morning.) 

" All at once he stopped short, and, with an expression of surprise, if not 
of distress, put his cigar away, rose, and moved his chair aside. A moment 
before, we could not have imagined that there was a woman within many 
miles of us ; but, turning ray eyes, I saw one who had just parted the 
screen, comely, well dressed, and with the air and manner of a gentlewoman. 
She had just arrived by a steamboat from Memphis, and came to present 
General Grant with a memorial or petition. In a few words she made 
known her purpose, and offered to give in detail certain facts, of which she 
stated she was cognizant, bearing upon her object. The general stood 
listening to her in an attitude of the most deferential attention, his hand 
otill upon his chair, which was half in front of him as he turned to face 
her, and slightly nodding his head as an expression of assent to almost 
every sentence she uttered. When she had completed her statement, he 
said, speaking very low and with an appearance of reluctance : ' I shall be 
compelled to consult my medical director, and to obtain a report from him 
before I can meet your wishes. If agreeable to you, I will ask him to call 
upon you to-morrow ; shall I say at 11 o'clock ?' The lady bowed and 



58 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

speak. He is a firm and endnring friend, and not a bitter or 
vindictive enemy. Few men are more free from envy or jeal- 

withdrew ; the general took a long breath, resumed his cigar and his seat, 
Raid that he was inclined to think her proposition a reasonable and humane 
one, and then went on with the interrupted review. 

"A week or two after this, having gone up the* river, Mr. Knapp met this 
lady at a hotel, when, in the course of a conversation, she referred with 
much sadness to the deplorable habits of General Grant, and the hopeless- 
ness of success while our army was commanded by a man so unfit to be 
charged with any grave responsibility. Mr. Knapp replied that he had 
the best reason for stating that the reports to which she referred were with- 
out foundation, and proceeded to give her certain exact information of 
which he happened to be possessed, which, as far as possible, refuted them. 
' Unfortunately,' said the lady, ' I have certain knowledge that they are 
but too true.' She then described her recent interview with General 
Grant, and it appeared that, from her point of view, the general was en- 
gaged in a carouse with one or two boon companions when she came un- 
expectedly upon him ; that he rose to his feet with difficulty, could not 
stand without staggering, and was obliged to support himself with a chair ; 
that he was evidently conscious that he was in an unfit condition to attend 
to business, and wanted to piat her oS" till the next day ; that his voice was 
thick, he spoke incoherently, and she was so much shocked that she was 
obliged to withdraw almost immediately. The next day, being ashamed 
to see her himself, he sent his doctor to find out what she wanted. 

"Mr. Knapp then told her that, having been one of the boon companions 
whom she had observed with the general on that occasion, and that liaving 
dined with him, and been face to face with him for fully three hours, he 
not only knew that he was under the influence of no drink stronger than 
the unqualified mud of the Mississippi, but he could assure her that he 
had never seen a man who appeared to him more thoroughly sober and 
clear-headed than General Grant at the moment of her entrance. 

" Notwithstanding his assurances, the lady repeated that she could not 
doubt the evidence of her own senses, and I suppose that to this day, Mr. 
Knapp and myself rank equally with General Grant, in her mind, as con- 
firmed drunkards. 



GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 59 

ousy ; the promotion and advancement of otliers, even when i t 
seemed an implied censure on himself, he has always most cor 
dially approved. He is not a man of genius, and in his military 

"This experience is by no means a nniquc one, and the zealous devotion 
with which I have often heard both men and women undermining the 
character of others for temperance, on equally slight grounds, has often 
led me to question if there are not vices in our society more destructive 
to sound judgment and honest courses than that of habitual overdrinking. 
"Yours, respectfully, Fred. Law Olmsted." 

The. Evening Post, after quoting this letter, adds : 

" We can tell another story of the same kind. "While Grant lay before 
Vicksburg a letter came to this office from a respectable and generally 
trustworthy person in a western city, an ardent Unionist, and a man of 
influence, in which we were told, as positively and undeniably true, that 
on a certain occasion, Grant and his staff went from Springfield to Cairo 
in the car of the president of the railroad ; that on the way the whole 
party, with one or two exceptions, got uproariously dritnk, and that Grant 
was the worst of the company. This, the writer said, he knew to be true, 
and on this and other evidence, he desired The Evening Post to demand 
the removal of Grant. 

" By a singular coincidence, Mr. Osborne, then President of the Illinois 
Central railroad, happened to come into this office while the letter we 
speak of was under discussion, and, of course, he was asked about the 
story it told. He replied, at once, 'It is a malignant falsehood. Grant 
and his staff did go down to Cairo in the president's car ; I took them down 
myself, and selected that car because it had conveniences for working, 
sleeping, and eating on the way. We had dinner in the car, at which wine 
was served to such as desired it. I asked Grant what he would drink ; he 
answered, a cup of tea, and this I made for him myself. Nobody was 
drunk on the car, and to my certain knowledge, Grant tasted no liquid but 
tea and water.' 

" This was the exact truth of the matter. Yet we believe our corres- 
pondent wrote in good faith." 



60 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

career, like most great commanders, has sometimes made great 
blunders, but he has been quick to learn even from his own 
errors, and never repeats them. In one word, he possesses a 
clear, sound, well balanced mind, every faculty of which is 
thoroughly practical, and such a combination is, in our work-a- 
day world, worth infinitely more than genius. 



DAVID GLASCOE FARRAGUT. 



if MONG the illustrious characters so rapidly developed by 

y$ the exigencies of the recent war, none have so elicited 

2i,^ the unhesitating confidence, or challenged the uneqivo- 

^ cal admiration of our people, and, we may justly add, 
of the civilized world, as the subject of our sketch, David 
Glascoe Farragut. Born in this country, he combines in 
his veins some of the best blood of fiery, haughty Spain, 
with that of stern, inflexible, yet genial Scotland. His 
father, George Farragut, a native of Citadella, the capital of the 
Island of Minorca, and a descendant of an ancient and noble 
Catalonian family, came to America in 1776, and promptly 
took part in the struggle for Independence, attaining finally 
the rank of major in the Continental Army. At the conclusion 
of the war, he married Elizabeth Shine, of North Carolina, 
a descendant from the old Scotch clan Mclvor, and removed 
to Campbell's Station, near Knoxville, Tennessee, where he en- 
gaged in firming, and where his illustrious son was born on 
the 5th of July, 1801. Yet the attractions of the old seafaring 
life which he had probably led before his arrival in America, 
seem to have outweighed his love of farming, and we find him, 
not long after, as a sailing-master in the navy, and a bosom friend 
of the father of Commodore Porter, who then held a similar rank 
The son inherited the father's love of the sea, and, although 

61 



62 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

born anJ brought up among the Cumberland mountains, he 
had hardly reached the age of nine and a half years before his 
longings for a sailor's life had fully overcome the slight 
prudential objections whicli his father felt obliged to urge — ^and 
a midshipman's commission was procured for him, bearing date, 
December 17th, 1810. His first cruise was in 1812, in the 
famous frigate Essex, under the command of his own and hia 
father's friend. Master Commander (subsequently Commodore) 
David Porter. 

On this vessel, young Farragut served, through the two 
eventful years of her cruise on the South American Coast, and 
the Pacific, from which she drove the British commerce. And, 
when attacked, in violation of all laws of neutrality, in the 
harbor of Valparaiso, on the 28th of March, 1814, by two 
British vessels of superior force, the Essex was compelled to 
yield — but not until she had been several times on fire, and 
was in a sinking condition. The young " middy," not yet 
seventeen years of age, bore a fearless part and was slightly 
wounded. Previous to this event he had served as acting- 
lieutenant on board the Atlantic, an armed prize. On his 
return home, his kind patron, the Commodore, placed him at 
school at Chester, Pennsylvania, where, beside other studies, he 
was thoroughly instructed in the elements of military and naval 
tactics. His schooling, however, was but brief, for, in 1816 
he was again in active service on board the flag-ship of the 
Mediterranean Squadron. Here he found, in the chaplain, 
Rev. Charles Folsom, a friend and instructor, to whom he 
attributes much of the usefulness and success which has marked 
his subsequent career. When, shortly after, Mr. Folsom was 
appointed consul at Tunis, young Farragut accompanied him, 
and the period of his life spent here, was a most important one, 
in its influences upon the "setting" of his character, then in its 



DAVID GLASCOE FAKRAGUT. 63 

"formative" stage. After some other service in the Med- 
iterranean, Farragut, being tlien nineteen and a half years old, 
was promoted (Jan nary, 1821) to the rank of lieutenant, and 
assigned to duty on the frigate Brandywine of the West India 
station. In 1824, he was stationed at the Norfolk Navy Yard; 
where (with the exception of a two years' cruise (1828-30) in 
the Yandalia, on the Brazil station) he remained until 1833. 
Here he married his first wife, a lady of highly respectable 
family ; who, unfortunately, became a suffering and hopeless 
invalid, long and most tenderly watched over by her husband, 
to whom her death was a most severe blow. Many years after, 
he married another Norfolk lady, Miss Virginia Loyall, by 
whom he has a son, Loyall Farragut, who graduates from West 
Point the present year. In 1833, Lieutenant Farragut was 
appointed executive officer (lieutenant-commander) of the sloop- 
of-war Natchez, and returned to the coast of Brazil, where he 
remained about one year. He was then allowed several years' 
rest on shore, and, in 1838, was again transferred to the West 
India or Home Squadron. In September, 1841, he was com- 
missioned commander in the navy, and ordered to the sloop-of- 
war Decatur, again on the Brazilian station. Eeceiving, in 
1842, three years' leave of absence, he was ordered, at its 
expiration in 1845, to the Norfolk Navy Yard, and there 
remained until 1847, when he took command of the sloop-of- 
war Saratoga, of the Home Squadron. Assigned to duty again, 
in the Norfolk Navy Yard, in 1850, where he was second in 
command to Commodore Sloat, he was appointed assistant 
inspector of ordnance under Commodore Skinner in 1851, and 
after three years' service in that capacity, was ordered, in 1854, 
to the command of the new Navy Yard at Mare's Island, 
California. In September, 1855, he was promoted to be a 
captain, and, in 1858, was placed in command of the steam 



64 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

sloop-of-war Brooklyn, serving on the Home Squadron, under 
Commodore McCluney, and from this command lie was relieved 
in November, 1860. 

By this time, he had spent about nineteen years afloat, 
eighteen of which had been occupied in shore duty, and the 
balance either in waiting orders, or on leave of absence. They 
had been years well improved by him in the augmentation and 
perfecting of hia professional and general knowledge — and the 
result is, that he possesses ' a most thorough and practical 
knowledge of every thing pertaining to naval science and 
warfare, while he is superior to most ofiicers in the service, in 
his breadth of general culture, especially in the languages, 
speaking with fluency and correctness most of the Continental 
languages, as well as Arabic and Turkish, 

And now arose the great War of the Eebellion, in which all 
of tlie experience and all of the culture which he had gathered 
during these years, was to be rendered available to the interests 
and the glory of his country. He was at that time (1861) 
living at Norfolk with his family, surrounded by friends and 
acquaintances who sympathized with the rebellion. But his 
loyal heart burned with a righteous indignation at the traitorous 
cabals and plottings going on around him. When told by 
brother officers that the State had seceded, and he must either 
resign or leave the place, he needed no time to decide upon his 
course, " I cannot live here, and will seek some other place 
where I can live, and on two hours' notice," was his answer. 
And hastily collecting such few valuables as they could, the 
patriot and his family, on the following morning, April 18th, 
1861, left their home, with difficulty obtaining at Baltimore 
(then in the hands of a mob) a passage by boat to Philadelphia, 
and thence, by railway, to New York. Securing a residence 
for his family at Hastings, on the Hudson, he immediately 



DAVID GLASCOE FARRAGUT, 65 

proceeded to Wasliington and placed his services at the 
disposal of the Navy Department. Treason, however, had 
well nigh stripped the Government of vessels, by sending them 
. to distant ports, while the few which were at its disposal were 
already in command of his seniors in the service — so that the 
only employment which could be aftbrded him was as a member 
of the Xaval Eetiring Board, wliich was busily employed in 
expelling the incompetent, and in promoting the active, loyal 
and deserving officers of the navy. 

Government, meanwhile, had resolved that an attempt should 
be made to capture New Orleans, and was pushing forward, 
with might and main, the fitting out of a squadroji, as well as 
of an army for its reduction. The naval forcb which they 
prepared for this undertaking, consisted of forty-six vessels of 
all kinds, of which fifteen were armed steamers, and twenty- 
one were bomb-schooners, each carrying gigantic mortars, 
throwing fifteen inch shells — while the total armament of the 
fleet was two hundred and eighty-six guns. The bomb-fleet 
was under command of Commander David D. Porter, while 
Farragut had charge of the entire squadron. Sailing in the 
Hartford, as his flag-ship, from Hampton Eoads, on the 3d of 
February, 1862, he arrived at Ship Island on the 20th, and 
immediately commenced the organization of the West Gulf 
Blockading Squadron. Making steady progress, in spite of 
delays in the forwarding of coal, naval stores, hospital stores, 
munitions of war, etc.; the difficulty of getting vessels of 
twenty-two ieet draught over the bars where the depth was 
only twelve and fifteen feet ; the obstinacy of some officers, and 
the ignorance of others; he finally surmounted all obstacles 
by the 18th of April, and commenced the bombardment of 
Fort Jackson, the lower one of two forts which defended the 

passage of the Mississippi, seventy-five miles below the city of 
5 



66 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

New Orleans. Across tlie river, and supported by huge logs, 
was stretched a heavy iron chain, located at a point where the 
fire front tlic two forts could be most eflfectively concentrated. 
Above this formidable obstruction, lay the Confederate fleet 
of sixteen gunboats and two iron-clad rams ; while along the 
banks of the river were land batteries of considerable strength. 
Six days' continuous bombardment of the forts, damaged them 
considerably, but their flags still floated in triumphant defiance. 
A council of war was called on board the flag-ship, and after 
listening to and carefully weighing the somewhat various 
opinions of his subordinates, Farragut announced his own in 
the following language (general order of April 20th) : " The 
flag-officer having heard all the opinions expressed by the 
different commanders, is of the opinion that ichatever is to be 
done, will have to he done quicldy. \Yhen, in the opinion of the 
flag-officer, the propitious time has arrived, the signal will be 

made to weigh and advance to the conflict He will 

make signal for close action, and abide the result — conquer, or be 
conquered. ^^ 

The plan which the heroic commander had decided upon in 
his own mind, was to break the chain by main force, run past 
the forts, engage and rout the rebel fleet and ascend the river to 
New Orleans, which would then be completely at his mercy. It 
was an extremely bold and hazardous movement — for his vessels 
would be exposed to the converging fire of the forts until the 
chain was severed, and would then have to risk the chances of 
a battle Avith a fleet nearly equal in numbers, and of which 
two were iron-clad. Farragut, however, is one who dares 
more than most men, and who believes that a determination to 
succeed is, together with cool courage and prompt action, the 
main element of success. Accordingly, issuing orders to start 
at tAvo A. M, on April 24th, he visited each ship, personally 



DAVID GLASCOE FARRAGUT. 67 

superintending the adoption of requisite measures for preserva- 
tion of life, and of the vessels, and instructing his officers us to 
the mode of the proposed attack. Many and ingenious were the 
devices adopted for the protection of the ships and machinery. 
The sheet cables were stopped up and down along the sides of 
the vessels, in the line of the engines — forming an almost 
impenetrable armor over this vulnerable part ; hammocks, coal, 
bags of ashes or of sand, etc., were so disposed as to Avard off, 
or break the force of shots coming in forward or abaft; the 
bulwarks were lined with hammocks or splinter nettings ; tlie 
sides of some of the vessels were coated with mud to make 
them less visible, while others had their decks whitewashed in 
order to render objects more easily distinguishable by night. At 
the appointed time, the movement gommenced — the chain had 
been previously broken, and the mortar boats moved up and 
anchored in sucli a position that they could pour in their shot 
as soon as the forts opened fire. The fleet of steam ships 
moved up to the attack in two columns. The left column, 
commanded by Farragut, and composed of the flag-ship Hart- 
ford, Brooklyn, Eichmond, Sciota, Iroquois, Kennebec, Pinola, 
Itasca, and AVinona, was to engage Fort St. Philip. The other 
column, led by Captain Theodorus Bailey in the Cayuga, with the 
Pensacola, Mississippi, Oneida, Varuna, Katahdin, Kineo, and 
Wissahickon, was to attack Fort Jackson. Passing steadily 
along, the fleet was abreast of the forts before they were dis- 
covered, but then came a storm of converging fire upon them. 
Dense smoke settled down upon the scene, and the combatants, 
fighting in utter darkness, could only aim by the flash of each 
other's guns. The flag-ship, Hartford, assailed by a fire-raft, 
whicli was pushed against it by the rebel rftra Manassas, cauglit 
fire, and, at the same moment, ran aground ; but, owing to the 
promptness and discipline of its crew, it speedily surmounted 



68 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

both dangers, and never slackened its fire upon the enemy. 
Sweeping close to the forts, the gunboats frequently threw into 
them a terribly destructive fire of shrapnel, grape, and canister ; 
while the forts were unable to depress their guns sufficiently to 
reach their lively and daring assailants. Then, as the Union 
fleet had nearly passed the forts, came the terrible shock of the 
rebel fleet, several of which were iron-beaked. The brunt of this 
collision was borne by the left column of boats, under Captain 
Bailey. For a while it was a terrible, "pell mell" fight. 
Several of the Union vessels were disabled, and the Varuna 
crushed by two rebel iron-pro wed gunboats (which, however, 
she crippled and set in flames), sank — her guns playing upon 
her foes to the very last moment. But the stout hearts had 
triumphed. Thirteen of Farragut's squadron passed the forts, 
destroyed an equal number of their gunboats and rams, as well 
as the iron-clad Manassas, and compelled the others to seek 
safety in flight. All this, too, Avith a loss of only thirty-six 
killed, and one hundred and twenty-five wounded. 

Ascending the river, the now victorious Union squadron ar- 
rived, by noon of the 25th, in front of the city, and demanded 
its surrender. Four days later, the now useless forts which 
they had passed, were surrendered to Captain Porter, of the 
bomb-fleet, and General Butler came up the river to arrange for 
landing his co-operating troops and taking possession of the 
city, which had surrendered on the 28th. Farragut, mean- 
while, destroyed some strong fortifications which had been 
erected at Carrollton, above the city, with a view to oppose the 
progress of Commodore Foote, down the river. Having thus 
seen New Orleans in the full possession of the Union armj^, 
Flag Officer Farragut ascended the Mississippi, and ran his 
squadron past the rebel batteries at Vicksburg, and communi- 
cated with Flag Officer Davis, then commanding the Mississippi 



PAVID GLASCOE FAKRAGUT. 09 

Squadrou, with whom ho arranged for a joint attack upon the 
city. The attack foiled, because the high Lliifl's on which 
Vicksburg is located were found to be too high to permit of 
bombardment by the gunboats, and because the co-operation of 
a land force was needed. Ee-passing the batteries therefore, on 
the 15th of July, he established the headquarters of his squad- 
ron at Pensacola ; and, while there, received the thanks of both 
Houses of Congress, together with the rank of rear-admiral— 
a grade then (July 11, 1862) for the first time created and recog- 
nized in the naval service of the United States. In the autumn 
of 1862 he directed the naval attacks on Corpus Christi, Sabine 
Pass and Galveston, which resulted in their capture ; the 
winter of 1862-63 was occupied in blockade service, routing 
guerillas along the river shores, expeditions against rebel towns 
on or near the coast, etc., etc. In the early part of March, 1863, 
General Grant being then engaged in his campaign against Vicks- 
burg, requested Farragut to aid him by assaulting that city 
from below, and that Porter's squadron should run the batteries 
at "Vicksburg, and assist in the same undertaking. His own 
troops he intended to send down the west bank of the Missis- 
sippi. Promptly responding to General Grant's wish, Admiral 
Farragut selected for the purpose eight of his best and strong- 
est vessels, the Hartford, Eichmond, Mississippi, Monongahela, 
Kineo, Albatross, and Genessee, the three last named being 
gnnboats, which Avere properly strengthened for the encounter. 
Six mortar-boats were also detailed to take part in the 
bombardment, though not to run past the batteries — which 
were at Port Hudson, and constituted the most formidable line 
of fortifications on the river, except those of Yicksburg itself, 
two hundred and thirty-two miles above. The fleet anchored, 
March 14th, 1863, near Prophet's Island, and the day wag 
spent, by the mortar boats, in bombarding the lower batteries, 



70 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

and in making a feint of attack ou the rear of the town by a 
small land force. The steam vessels took no part in this, but 
at half past nine P. M., Avith their lights out, and decks white- 
washed, to enable the men to see the shot and shell which were 
piled upon the decks, they slipped quietly from their moorings, 
and moved up the river, lashed together in pairs, and closely 
hugging the eastern bank. Cautious as were their movements, 
they were discovered and signalled ; and in response an immense 
bonfire was speedily kindled by the rebels, which lighted up the 
river directly in front of the strongest rebel battery, in such a 
way that no vessel could pass unseen. As the flag-ship and 
her consort swept within the illuminated space, the rebel fire 
commenced with terrific fury, and from the batteries, extending 
nearly four miles, tier above tier on the high blufls, rattled a 
storm of iron shot, to which the Union vessels and the mortar 
boats briskly responded. And over all, as at New Orleans, the 
smoke of battle settling down upon the river, bewildered both 
gunners and pilots. Still the brave admiral and his heroic 
followers pressed steadily on ; until a curve of the river 
throwing its channel over close to the eastern bank, brought 
the floating column almost muzzle to muzzle with the water 
Datteries along the banks. The Hartford and Albatross, lashed 
together, passed unharmed ; the Eichmond and Genessee Avere 
disabled by a shot in the steam-chest of the former, and fell 
back; the Monongahela ran aground, and was under fire for 
twenty-five minutes, before her consort, the Kineo, could get 
her afloat, and was also placed hors du combat^ and obliged to 
drop down the river, while the Mississippi unfortunately 
grounded on the west bank of the river, directly under the con 
centrated fire' of the entire rebel batteries, took fire and (de- 
serted by her gallant crew) floated down the river and blew up. 
The Hartford and Albatross, therefore, which were the only 



DAVID GLASCOE FARBAGUT. 7t 

vessels wbicli succeeded in passing tlie terrible ordeal, blockaded 
the moutli of tlie Eed River, and cut oil an important channel 
of supplies to Vicksburg ; and, in May, liaving been relieved 
by Admiral Porter, a part of wliose squadron had run the 
Yicksburg batteries, Farragut returned to New Orleans, via 
the Atchafalaya, and directed the naval operations against Port 
Hudson until its surrender. 

The admiral had long been anxious to attack and subdue the 
strong forts, three in number, which defended the entrance to 
Mobile Bay, and under the cover of whose guns, an immense 
amount of blockade running was successfully carried on. But 
although often proposed, it was not until August, 1864, that 
the project could be carried into effect. Then, a combined 
attack of land and sea forces was arranged between Farragut 
and Generals Canby and Granger of the army. In pursuance 
of this plan, troops were landed on Dauphin Island, and in the 
early dawn of the 5th of August, the fleet moved forward to a 
combat which proved to be more destructive and more novel, 
in some of its aspects, than any naval battle upon this continent. 
Fourteen sloops of war and gunboats and four iron-clad moni- 
tors were arranged by the admiral, in the following order of 
attack : the Brooklyn and the Octorara were lashed together, 
the Brooklyn (which, much against his wishes, was allowed the 
lead) being on the starboard side, nearest to Fort Morgan ; next, 
the Hartford and Metacomct ; then, the Eichmond and Port 
Eoyal ; the Lackawanna and Seminole ; the Monongahela and 
Kennebec ; the Ossipee and Itasca, and the Oneida and Galena. 
On the right or starboard of the gunboats, were arranged the 
monitors, the Tecumseh (Commander Craven) in the lead ; the 
Manhattan (Commander Nicholson), the "Winnebago (Comman- 
der Stevens), and the Chickasaw (Lieutenant Commander Per- 
kins). With this force he prepared to engage the three forts, 



72 HEX OF OUR DAY. 

all well garrisoned, and supported by three powerful gunboats 
(the Selma, Morgan, and Gaines) and the iron-clad steam ram, 
Tennessee, which the rebels considered the most formidable 
armored vessel ever constructed by them. 

Steaming steadily up the channel, the Tecumseh, at 6:47, 
A. M., fired the first shot. Fort Morgan soon replied, the Brooklyn 
then replied, and the action became general. Suddenly, the 
Tecumseh struck a toi*]^)edo, careened and sank almost instantly, 
carrying down with her, her gallant commander, and most of 
the crew. Sending what aid he could to the few who yet 
struggled amid the waves, the admiral took the lead in his 
own flag-ship, the Hartford, steaming off in a track which had 
been well lined by the rebels with torpedoes, but which he 
determined to take the risk of, on the 2^'^ohabiUiy, as he says, of 
their being innocuous by reason of having been some time 
immersed in the water. By careful manoeuvering, the fleet 
were enabled to clear the middle ground, and to keep up a 
pretty effectual silencing fire on Fort Morgan. At about 8 A. M., 
just as they had passed the fort, the Hartford was threatened 
by the ram Tennessee, and the rebel gunboats ahead so 
annoyed the Union vessels by a raking fire, that the admiral 
detached the Metacomet and Octorara in pursuit of them ; and 
one, the Selma, was captured, while the two others took refuge 
under the guns of the fort; one, the Gaines, being hopelessly 
damaged. The remainder of this combat between the iron- 
clad monster, the Tennessee, and the Union fleet, cannot be 
more graphically described than in the words of the admiral's 
own report. 

" Having passed the forts and dispersed the enemy's 'gun- 
boats, I had ordered most of the vessels to anchor, when I 
perceived the ram Tennessee standing up for this ship. This 
was at forty-five minutes past eight. I was not long in com- 



DAVID GLASCOE FARRAGUT. 73 

prehending his intentions to be the destruction of the flag-ship. 
The monitors and such of the wooden vessels as I thought best 
adapted for the purpose, were immediately ordered to attack 
the ram, not only -^vith their guns, but bows on at full speed ; and 
then began one of the fiercest naval combats on record, " The 
Monongahela, Commander Strong, was the first vessel that 
struck her, and in doing so, carried away her own iron prow, 
together with the cutwater, Avithout apparently doing her 
adversary much injury. The Lackawanna, Captain Marchand, 
was the next vessel to strike her, which she did at full speed ; 
but though her stem was cut and crushed to the plank-ends, 
for the distance of three feet above the water's edge and five feet 
below, the only perceptible effect on the ram was to give her 
a heavy list. The Hartford was the third vessel that struck 
her ; but, as the Tennessee quickly shifted her helm, the blow 
was a glancing one, and, as she rasped along our side, we poured 
our whole port broadside of nine-inch solid shot within ten feet 
of her casement. The monitors worked slowly, but delivered 
their fire as opportunity offered. The Chickasaw succeeded in 
getting under her stern and a fifteen-inch shot from the 
Manhattan broke through lier iron plating and heavy wooden 
packing; though the missile itself did not enter the vessel. 
Immediately after the collision with the flag-ship, I directed 
Captain Drayton to bear down on the ram again. He was 
doing so at full speed, when unfortunately, the Lackawanna 
ran into the Hartford just forward of the mizzen-mast, cutting 
her down to within two feet of the water's edge. "We soon got 
clear again, however, and were fast approaching our adversary 
when she struck her colors and ran up the white flag. 

She was at this time sore beset ; the Chickasaw was pounding 
away at her stern, the Ossipee was approaching her at full 
speed, and the Monongahela, Lackawanna, and this ship, were 



74 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

bearing down upon her, determined upon her destruction. Her 
smoke-stack had been shot away, her steering-chains were gone, 
compelling a resort to her relieving-tackles, and several of her 
port-shutters were jammed. Indeed, from the time the Hart- 
ford struck her, until her surrender, she never fired a gun. As 
the Ossipee, Commander Le Roy, was about to strike her, she 
hoisted the white flag, and that vessel immediately stopped her 
engine, though not in time to avoid a glancing blow. During 
this contest with the rebel gunboats and the ram Tennessee, 
and wliicli terminated by her surrender at 10 o'clock, we lost 
many more men than from the fire of the batteries of Fort 
Morgan." 

Durino; the ens-aojement, the admiral had lashed himself in 
a perilous position in the main rigging, near the top — from 
which he could see, much more easily than from the deck, the 
progress of the fight ; and, it is said, that, at the moment of the 
collision between the Hartford and the Lackawanna, when the 
men all cried to each other, to " save the admiral," he in the 
maintop, finding that the ship would float at least long enough 
to serve his purpose, and intent only on that, called out to his 
fleet-captain, " Go on with speed ! Earn her again !" 

Yet amid this perilous excitement, he forgot not to notice the 
admirable conduct of the men at their guns, throughout the 
fleet, and, in a manner tender and sympathetic, alludes to their 
heroism, iu his report, as follows : — "Although no doubt their 
hearts sickened as mine did, when their shipmates were struck 
down beside them, yet there was not a moment's hesitation to 
lay their comrades aside and spring again to their deadly 
work." Humane in feeling as he is gallant in action, Farragut, 
learning that his vanquished rival, the rebel Admiral Buchanan 
was severely wounded — (he subsequently lost a leg by amputa- 
tion) — promptly requested permission of the commandant of 



DAVID GLASCOE FAKRAGUT. 75 

Fort Morgan, to send the admiral and the other wounded rebel 
officers, under flag of truce, to the Union hospitals at Pensacola. 
The request was granted, and a vessel was detailed for their 
conveyance. By this victory were secured the entire destruc- 
tion of the rebel fleet, the capture of the armored ship Tennes- 
see, and of two hundred and thirty rebel officers and men ; the 
abandonment, on the day following, of Fort Powell, with eigh- 
teen guns ; the subsequent surrender of Fort Gaines, with fifty- 
six officers, one thousand eight hundred and eighteen men, and 
twenty-six guns ; and (after a twenty-four hour bombardment) 
of Fort Morgan with sixty guns, and six hundred prisoners — • 
and the hermetical sealing up of the port of Mobile against 
blockade-runners, in itself a most serious blow to the Confeder- 
ate cause. 

Eemaining in command of the West Gulf Squadron, till 
November, 1864, he requested leave of absence, and was called 
to "Washington for consultation in regard to future naval move- 
ments. A resolution of thanks to him, for his magnificent 
services, was passed by Congress, and the rank of vice-admiral 
(corresponding to that of lieutenant-general in the army) was 
created for him — thus making him virtually the chief comman- 
der of the naval forces of the United States. In July 1866, the 
rank of admiral was created by Congress, and he was promoted 
to this, and Rear- Admiral Porter made vice-admiral. 

During the time he was in command of the West Gulf squad- 
ron, it had more fighting and less prizes than fell to the share 
of any other blockading squadron on the coast, and while the 
admirals of the other fleets had acquired large fortunes from prize- 
money, Farragut had received little beyond his regular pay. 
In view of this fact, the merchants of New York subscribed the 
sum of fifty thousand dollars, which was j)resented to him in 
United States 7.30 Treasury notes, in January, 1865, in testi- 



76 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

mony of their appreciation of his ability as a naval commander, 
and of the great services which he had conferred upon com- 
merce and the nation. 

In April, 1865, Vice-Admiral Farragut revisited Norfolk for 
the first time since he had left it in 1861, and was received 
•with an address of welcome from a committee of the Loyal 
League of that city. In his reply to their congratulations he 
made the following pertinent remarks concerning his own share 
in the rebellion just closed, "I was unwilling to believe that 
this difficulty "would not have been settled; but it was all in 
vain, and, as every man must do in a revolution, as he puts his 
foot down, so it marks his life ; so it has pleased God to protect 
me thus far, and make me somewhat instrumental in dealing 
heavy blows at the rebellion. I have been nothing more than 
an instrument in the hands of God, well supported by my 
officers and men, who have done their duty faithfully," 

In the spring of 1867, Admiral Farragut, still desirous of sea 
service, joined the Mediterranean Squadron, and has been for 
nearly a year in European waters, everywhere received with 
the highest honors, and everywhere noticeable for his modesty, 
his patriotism, and his zeal for his country's honor and pros- 
perity. 

After all the vicissitudes of so remarkable a life, forty years of 
which have been spent afloat. Admiral Farragut is as vigorous 
in body, clear of head, and strong of purpose, as in his earlier 
days. In his nature, gentleness of temper is allied with a bravery 
that disdains all obstacles, impatience of delay, and disregard of 
danger ; vivacity of manner with extreme frankness and good 
humor ; a high-toned honesty of life with devotion to duty, and 
a broad general education with the most minute acquaintance 
of every detail of thorough seamanship. He has accomplished 
results which, in the words of the English Army and Navy 



DAVID GLASCOE FARRAGUT. 77 

Gukjette (not over-favorable to any thing American), " place him 
at the head of his profession, and certainly constitute him the 
first naval officer of the day," and he has accomplished them 
by force of a ivill ivhich never admits the possihiUiij of defeat. " I 
did not expect to succeed," said the gallant Commodore Dupont, 
to him, when relating the many obstacles and difficulties which 
opposed his excellent but unsuccessful attack, with the moni 
tors, on Fort Sumter. " That is the very reason you did not 
Bucceed," was Farragut's characteristic reply. 



WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 



ILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN, son of Hon. 
Charles E. Sherman, for some years a judge of the 

{g)(s Supreme Court of Ohio, and a brother of Hou. 

*" ^ John Slierman, the Avell known United States Sena- 
tor from that State, was born in Lancaster, Ohio, on the 8th of 
February, 1820. His early education was obtained in the 
schools of his native town, but after his father's death, which 
occurred when he was nine years of age, he became a member 
of the family of Hon. Thomas Ewing, where he enjoyed still 
wider advantages ; and, at the age of sixteen, entered the United 
States Military Academy at West Point. Graduating from that 
institution, June 30th, 1810, with the sixth rank of his class, 
he was immediately appointed to a second lieutenancy in the 
Third Artillery, and served through the next year in Florida, 
achieving some distinction by the masterl}'' manner iu Avhich he 
foiled certain maneuvers of the "wily Indian chief " Billy Bow- 
legs." In November, 18il, Sherman was made a first lieuten- 
ant, and, shortly after, was ordered to Fort Moultrie, Charleston 
harbor, where he remained several years, forming intimacies 
with eminent citizens of South Carolina, which it required all 
his firmness and patriotism in after years to abandon. In 1846 
he was transferred to California and made assistant adjutant 
general, performing his duties with such marked ability, that 



WILLTAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 79 

Congress, in 1851, made h'wn captain, by Ircvet, dating from 
j\[ay 30tL, 1848, "for meritorious services in California, during 
tlie war with Mexico." In September, 1850, lie was appointed 
Commissary of Subsistence, with rank of captain, and assigned 
to the staff of tlic commander of the Department of the West, 
with headquarters at St. Louis. During the same year he mar- 
ried the daughter of his old friend, Hon. Thomas Ewing, and 
was soon after stationed at New Orleans, where he became well 
acquainted with the leading men of Louisiana. In September, 
1853, he resigned his commission in the army, and was, for 
four years ensuing, the manager of the banking house of Lucas, 
Turner & Co., of San Francisco, California. In 1857, his ser- 
vices were solicited and secured, by some of his old Louisiana 
friends, as the President and Superintendent of a State Military 
Acadeni}', which they were then establishing, and he assumed 
his position early in 1858. The objects and inducements 
alleged for the creation of such an institution were, of them- 
selves, reasonable and plausible ; and it was not until after the 
commencement of the Presidential campaign of 1860, that he 
became aware of the disloyal sentiments existing among the 
majority of the leading men of the State, or of the real and 
treasonable purposes which had influenced them in founding 
the academy over Avhich he presided. Simultaneously with the 
unavoidable unmasking of their plans, these men now strove, 
by every persuasive art, to induce him to join with them in 
their revolutionary projects. But the solicitations of friendship, 
the proffer of gold, and the tender of high official position, failed 
to shake, even for a moment, the sterling loyalty of the soldier. 
Amazed at the revelation, and convinced that civil war was 
inevitable, he promptly sent to the Governor of the State the 
following letter of resisrnation : — 



80 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

Janvary 18, 1861 

Gov. TiiOMAS 0. MooKE, Baton Rouge, La. 

Sir: — As I occupy a 5' j^as^,'- military position ander this State, 
I deem it proper to acquaint you tliat I accepted such position 
when Louisiana was a State in the Union, and when the motto 
of the seminary was inserted in marble over the main door, 
•' jSy tlie liberalUy of the Genercd Government of the United Slates 
The Union, Esto PerpduaJ^ Kecent events foreshadow a great 
change, and it becomes all men to choose. If Louisiana with- 
draws from the Federal Union, / prefer to maintain my alle- 
giance to the Old Constitution as long as a fragment of it sur- 
vives, and my longer stay here would be wrong in every sense of 
the word. Li that event, I beg you will send or appoint some 
authorized agent to take charge of the arms and muintions of 
war here belonging to the State, or direct me what dispusiiiun 
should be made of them. And furthermore, as President of the 
Board of Supervisors, I beg you to take immediate steps to 
relieve me as Superintendent, the moment the State determines 
to secede ; for, on no earthly account Avill I do an}' act or think 
any thought, hostile to, or in defiance of, the old Governmout of 
the United States. 

With great respect, &c., 
(Signed) W. T. Sherman. 

His resignation was accepted with regret, by those whi 
knew his worth as a man and his value as a soldier, and an in- 
structor of soldiers; and, in February, he removed with his 
family to St. Louis. Shortly before the attack on Fort Sumter 
he visited Washington, and, conversant as he Avas Avith the 
intentions and plans of the Southern leaders — he was amazed 
at the apathy and incredulity of the Government, who, as he 
said, " were sleeping on a volcano, which would surely burst 
upon them unprepared." Urging upon government officials 
the imminency of the impending danger and the fearful lack of 
preparation to meet it, he also proffered his services as a sol- 
dier who had been educated at the country's expense and 



WILLIAM TECUMSEII SIIERMAX. 8l 

who owed every thing to her care and institutions. But the 
threatened storm was generally regarded, by those in autliority, 
as a matter which would "blow over" in sixty, or, at the most 
in ninety days, and he could lind no one to comprehend or 
indorse his viewti in regard to the necessity of immediately call- 
ing out an immense army for Hit war. Upon the organization, 
however, of the new regiments of the regular army, in June, 
1861, he Avas made colonel of the new 13th infantry, his com 
mission dating from May 14th, 1861. His first actual servica 
in the war was at the battle of Bull Eun, or Manassas, where he 
commanded the Third Brigade in the First (Tyler's) Division. 
The spirited manner in which he handled his men was in strong 
contrast to the many disgraceful scenes which have made that 
day one of ignoble memories. The vigor and desperate valor, 
indeed, with which Sherman fought his brigade on that occasion, 
is evidenced by the fact that its losses were far heavier than 
any other brigade in the Union army ; his total of killed, 
wounded and missing, being six hundred and nine, while that 
of the whole division was but eight hundred and fifty-nine, and 
of the entire army, aside from prisoners and stragglers, but fif- 
teen hundred and ninety. Ilis valor and good conduct were 
promptly rewarded by his appointment as a brigadier-general 
of volunteers, his commission dating from May 17th, 1861 ; 
and, early in August, he was made second in command of the 
Department of the Ohio, under General Anderson. On the Sth 
of October he was appointed to the chief command, in place of 
that general, who had been obliged to resign on account of ill 
health. The Departiii'nt of the Ohio, which, at this time, com- 
prised all east of the ^fississippi, and vrest of the Alleghanies, 
was in a deplorable condition ; paucity of troops ; insufficiency 
of supplies and munitions of war; a surrounding country, luke- 

n'arm, if not openly inimical to the Union cause, and the clo.se 
6 



82 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

proximity of large, well equipped and well officered forces of 
the enemy (who, if they had known his real condition, could 
have driven him " out of his boots" in ten days) rendered Sher- 
man's situation a most unenviable one. In addition to the 
pressure of these unfavorable circumstances, he now found him- 
self annoyed and seriously endangered by the presence in his 
camp of numbers of those " gad-flies" of the press — newspaper 
letter writers and reporters — whose indiscreetness threatened 
to reveal to the enemy, the very facts which most needed con- 
cealment. He soon put an end to this risk by a stringent 
general-order, which excluded the whole busy crew from his 
lines, and, of course, brought down upon his own head an ava- 
lanche of indignation from a hitherto " untrammeled press." 
Sherman's greatest difficulty, however, was the impossibility of 
making the Government comprehend the magnitude of the con- 
test which it was waging, and the necessity of placing a large 
and well appointed army in the field, which should make 
short work with rebellion by the crushing weight of numbers. 
When, in October 1861, he explained to the Secretary of War 
the critical position of his own department, and, in reply to a 
question of the number of troops needed for an immediate for- 
ward and decisive movement, replied " two hundred thousand 
men" — his words were considered visionary — and he was incon- 
tinently pronounced " crazy," by government officials as well as 
by the newspaper press, Avho had not forgiven him for his for- 
mer severity. Chagrined at the distrust of his military judg- 
ment thus evinced by his superiors, Sherman, in November 1861, 
asked to be relieved from his position, and was succeeded by 
General Buell, who, being immediately reinforced with the 
troops so often requested by and so persistently denied to his 
predecessor, was enabled to hold the department in a defensive 
attitude, until the opening of the spring campaign. 



WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. «3 

Sherman, mefinwliile, was left to rust in command of Benton 
barracks, near St. Louis, until General lialleck, who succeeded 
Fremont in command of the Western Department, and who 
well knew the abilities of the man, detailed him for service in 
General Grant's army ; and, after the capture of Fort Donelson, 
he was placed in command of that general's fifth division, com- 
posed mostly of raw troops, whom he began immediately to 
drill and perfect. Soon the storm of battle again burst upon 
him, at Shiloh, April 6th, 1862, where he had taken position 
three miles out from Pittsburgh Landing, on the Corinth road. 
Sustaining, against great odds, the repeated and furious onsets 
of the enemy on the 6th, he assumed the offensive on the 7th, 
and pushed them back with heavy loss ; and, on the morning 
of the 8th, pushing still forward, met and routed their cavalry, 
and captured many prisoners and large quantities of arms and 
ammunition. During the advance upon Coriuth, which followed 
this battle of Shiloh, his division was constantly in the lead and 
carried, occupied, and reintrenched seven distinct camps of the 
enemy ; and when, on the 30th of May, Beauregard retreated 
from the city, it was Sherman's gallant division which took 
possession of it. Occupying with these raw recruits, at the 
opening battle of Shiloh, " the key point of the landing," says 
General Grant, in bis official report, " it is no disparagement to 
any other officer to say, that I do not believe there was another 
division commander on the field who had the skill and expe- 
rience to have done it. To his individual efforts I ara indebted for 
the success of that battled General Halleck also records it as the 
"unanimous opinion, that General Sherman saved the for- 
tunes of the day ; he was in the thickest of the fight, had three 
horses killed under him, and was twice wounded" — and in this 
eulogiam of his services, every general officer, as well as others, 
heartily concurred. At the earnest request of Generals Grant 



84 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

and Halleck, Sherman was made a major-/;eneral of volunteers, 
dating from May 1st, 1862. Appointed by General Grant, in 
the spring of 1862, to the command of the district of Memphis, 
Tennessee, he thoroughly supjjressed, within the course of six 
months, the guerrilla warfare and contraband trade which had 
rendered it, in the opinion of rebel ofl&cers, a more valuable 
position to them in the possession of the Federal government, 
then it ever had been while in their own. When, in December, 
1862, General Grant began his operations against Vicksburg, 
he first placed Sherman in command of the fifteenth army corps, 
and after the latter had made some important reconnoissances, he 
took him into his confidence regarding his plan for the capture 
of that city. According to this plan, Sherman, with foui' picked 
divisions, sailed from Memphis in December, to make a direct 
attack upon Chickasaw Bluffs, a part of the defences of Vicksburg 
on the river side, while Grant himself, proceedi Qg down the Missis- 
sippi Central railroad, to Jackson, Mississippi, t\'as to move to the 
rear of the city. Grant's movement, however, was prevented by 
the unexpected surrender of Holly Springs, en the Mississippi 
Central railroad, which was to be his base of supplies, and he was 
also unable to communicate the fact to Sherman. Unconscious 
of this, therefore, the latter pressed on, disembarked on the 26th 
and 27th of December, and after three days' desperate fighting, 
wMbh failed to make any impression upon the fortifications of 
the city,, had the mortification to be superseded in command by 
General McClernand, a volunteer officer, to whom he transferred 
the command with a soldierly loyalty and manliness, which few 
men, in his circumstances, would have been able to exhibit 
towards a civilian general, and a rival. The repulse of the 
Chickasaw Bluffs, however, was subsequently fully compensated 
for by the hearty praise and candid criticism of General Grant 
and other eminent military critics, who saw, in the natural topo- 



WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 85 

grapliy of tlie ground, the insuperable obstacles against whicli 
he had so bravely contended. Sherman's next most brilliant 
exploit was his rapid and successful movement for the relief of 
Admiral Porter's fleet of gunboats, on the Sunflower river, 
which were in danger of being hemmed in by the enemy, while 
attempting to reach Haines' Bluff, above Vicksburg, with a 
view to an attack on the city. In Grant's subsequent attempt 
on the city from below, the role assigned to Sherman was one 
involving considerable danger, and requiring a high degree of 
military tact — being a feigned attack, or rather a demonstration, 
in conjunction with the gunboats, on Uain'bs' Bluff. This 
attack, which continued with great fury for two days, enabled 
Grant to land his troops without opposition at a point seventy 
miles below, — then, by a forced six days' march over terrible 
roads, General Sherman joined his force to that of Grant at 
Grand Gulf, and the whole army moved forward. We next 
find Sherman operating with McPherson in a series of brilliant 
movements, resulting in the rout of the enemy and the capture 
of Jackson, Mississippi, and the destruction of numerous rail- 
road bridges, machine shops, and arsenals at that point; then, 
by a succession of rapid marches, which General Grant charac- 
terized as " almost unequalled," he wrested the possession of 
Walnut Hills from the enemy, cutting their force in two, and 
compelling the evacuation of Haines', Snyder's, Walnut, and 
Chickasaw Bluff's, together with all their strong works ; and 
enabling General Grant at once to open communication with 
the fleet and his new base on the Yazoo and Mississippi, above 
Yicksburg. To General Sherman it was perhaps an additional 
source of pleasure that the position which he had thus gained 
by a rear attack, was the very one against which, less than five 
months before, he had hurled his troops in vain. In the first 
assault on the enemy's lines. May 19th, Sherman's corps, alone 



86 MEN OF OUR DAY 

of the three engaged, succeeded in making any material advance. 
The surrender of the city of Yicksburg, on the 4tli of July 
brought rest and comfort to all of the brave "Army of tbe 
Tennessee, except to Sherman's corps, who were immediately 
started in pursuit of Johnston, then hovering in the rear of the 
Union army. Johnston marched at once to Jackson, which he 
attempted to defend, but finally, on the night of the 16th, 
evacuated hastily, abandoning every thing to Sherman, of whom 
General Grant said, in reference to this last success, " It entitles 
General Sherman to more credit than usually falls to the lot of 
one man to eafn." A well earned rest of two months was 
terminated, September 23d, by orders from Grant to reinforce 
Eosecrans, who had just fought the battle of Chickamauga. 
Promptness, celerity of movement, and a force of will which 
overcame every obstacle which enemy or accident placed in his 
way, characterized his execution of this order. Arriving at 
Memphis, he pushed on to open communication between that 
city and Chattanooga; and, while so engaged, was appointed 
commander of the Army of the Tennessee, at the request of 
General Grant, who had been advanced to the command of the 
Grand Military Division of the Mississippi, comprising the 
Armies of the Cumberland, the Ohio, and the Tennessee. On 
the 15th of November, under imperative orders from Grant, 
and by a forced march, he joined that general at Chattanooga, 
and exliausted as his men were, by the arduous march from 
Memphis, he at once received, and promptly obeyed, orders to 
cross the Tennessee, make a lodgment on the terminus of 
Missionary Eidge and demonstrate against Bragg's flank. 
The roads were in a horrible condition, but by herculean exer- 
tions, three divisions were put across the river and concealed, 
during the night of November 23d, behind some hills, and by 
one o'clock, the following morning, his whole force had crossed 



WILLIAM TECUMSEII SHERMAN. 87 

both the Tennessee and the Chickamauga, and under cover of 
a rain and dense fog, the cavalry dashed forward to cut the 
Chattanooga and Knoxville, and the Cleveland and Dalton rail- 
roads, while the infantry, by half past three, v. M., surprised 
and captured the fortifications on the terminus of Missionar}'- 
Kidge ; and the Union guns being dragged up the steep ascent, 
quickl}'- silenced the fire which was opened upon them from the 
batteries of the discomforted and enraged enemy. The night 
was spent in rest and preparation for the struggle which the 
morrow would inevitably bring for the possession of Fort Buck- 
ner, the formidable fortification Avhicli crowned the next or 
superior ridge of the hill. To General Sherman, on account of 
his known abilities and, more especially, his unquestioning 
obedience to military necessities, was assigned a task requirino- 
firmness and self-sacrifice, unattended with any immediate hope 
of reputation and fame, but wliich he accepted with that prompt- 
ness which always characterizes him. It was, to make a per- 
sistent demonstration against Fort Buckner, in order to draw 
the enemy's force from Forts Bragg and Breckinridge, which 
being weakened, would f dl an easier conquest to Grant's storm 
ing column. Splendidly did this masterly soldier and his brave 
men carry out their part in the programme of the battle of the 
25th. From sunrise, until three o'clock, they surged forward 
in desperate charges upon the fortifications of the crested 
heights above them — again .ind again were repulsed — still 
gained a little and steadily hela what they gained — until the 
enemy had massed nearly his whole force against the struggling 
column ; when, suddenly, Hooker swooped doAvn upon Fort 
Bragg, and at twentv minutes to four p. m., Thomas's Fourth 
army corps, charging in solid column up the ridge, carried Fort 
Breckinridge by assault — and the battles of Chattanooga were 
won. The glorious success of that day was due quite us much 



88 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

to the persistency and stubbornness with which General Sherman 
held the crest of Tunnel llill, as to the gallant daring of the 
other divisions ; and, without the former, the latter could never, 
bj any possibility, have succeeded. 

Victory, however, brought no respite to Sherman and his 
tired veterans. The flying foe was to be pursued and railroad 
connections severed ; and, while so engaged, they were ordered 
to the relief of Knoxville, where twelve thousand men under 
General Burnside were closely besieged by Longstreet. Eighty- 
four miles of terrible roads, and two rivers, lay between them 
and Knoxville, which must be reached in three days. Seven days 
before they had left their camp beyond the Tennessee, with 
only two days' rations, and but a single coat or blanket per 
man, officers as well as privates, and with no other provisions 
but such as they coidd gather by the road. In that time, also, 
they had borne a conspicuous part in a terrible battle, and well 
might they have been excused if they had grumbled at this 
fresh imposition of extra duty. But with them "to hear was 
to obey." The railroad bridge across the Hiawassee was repaired 
and planked ; they then pushed forward to the Tennessee, and 
found the bridge there destroyed by the enemy, who retreated. 
Despatching Colonel Long with the cavalry brigade, with orders 
to ford the Little Tennessee, and communicate tidings of the 
approaching relief to General Burnside within twenty-four 
hours, Sherman turned aside to Morgantown, where he extem- 
porized a bridge, which he crossed on the night of December 
4th; and the next morning received information from Burn- 
side of Colonel Long's safe arrival, and that all was Avell. 
Moving still rapidly forward, he was met at Marysville, on the 
evening of the 5th, by the welcome news of the abandonment 
of the siege by General Longstreet, on the previous evening. 
Halting at Marysville, he sent forward two divisions, under 



WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 89 

Genera] Granger, to Knoxville, and every thing there being found 
safe, returned leisurely with the rest of his army to Chattanooga. 
The three months' campaign thus closed, had been one of 
extreme flitigue and brilliant success. Leaving Vicksburg, 
they had marched four hundred miles, without sleep for three 
successive nights, fought at Chattanooga, chased the enemy 
out of Tennessee, and turning more than a hundred miles north- 
ward, had compelled the raising of the siege of Knoxville. 
All this had been done, much of the time, in the depth of winter, 
over a mountainous region, sometimes barefoot, without regular 
rations or supplies of any kind, and yet without a murmur. 
" Forty rounds of ammunition in our cartridge-boxes, sixty 
rounds in our pockets ; a march from Memphis to Chattanooga ; 
a battle and pursuit ; another march to Knoxville ; and victory 
everywhere," was the proud answer of one of these fifteenth 
corps soldiers, in reply to the sentinel who asked him where his 
badge was. And the cartridge-box wdth forty rounds, thence- 
forth, became the emblem of the fifteenth corps. 

Early in 1863, Gen. Sherman planned an expedition into 
Central Mississippi, which was sanctioned by Gen. Grant and 
which was immediately carried into effect. His idea was to 
march a movable column of 22,000 men, cut loose from any 
base, for one hundred and twenty miles through the enemy's 
country, which should sweep Mississippi and Alabama out 
of the grasp of the rebels. As a military conception it was un- 
surpassed in modern times, except by Sherman himself in his 
later movements ; and that it failed of its intended results — and 
became merely a gigantic raid, which, however, carried terror 
and destruction into the very heart of the Confederacy — was 
owing only to the lack of proper energy in the co-operating 
cavalry force. This force, 8000 strong, leaving Memphis on the 
1st of February, was to move down the Mobile and Ohio rail- 



90 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

road from Corinth to Meridian, destroying tlie road as they 
went. At Meridian they were expected to meet Sherman, who, 
with 20,000 cavalry, 1200 infantry, and twenty days' rations, 
left Vicksburg on the 3d, The cavalry force, however, were so 
badly behind time at starting, that when they did move they 
met with much opposition from the enemy, who had massed at 
different points on the route ; and they finally turned back. 
Sherman's share of the expedition was promptly carried out, 
railroad communications were cut, stores destroyed, negroes 
brought sxwaj, and an immense amount of irreparable damage 
done. Finding that the co-operating cavalry force was not " on 
time " at the appointed rendezvon;^, he turned his face westward 
from Meridian, followed at a very respectful distance by the 
enemy, from whom, however, he received no serious opposition. 
The failure, however, deranged and postponed, for a time, the 
contemplated attack on Mobile by Farragut. 

On the 12th of March, 1 864, Sherman succeeded to the com- 
mand of the grand military division of the Mississippi, recently 
vacated by Gen, Grant, who had been elevated to the command 
of the armies of the United States. This division comprised 
the departments of the Ohio, the Cumberland, the Tennessee, 
and, for the time, Arkansas ; and the forces under his command 
— soon to be increased — numbered, at that time, over 150,000 
men, under such leaders as Thomas, McPherson, Schofield, 
Hooker, Howard, Stoneman, Kilpatrick, Eousseau, and others 
of equal ability and fame. At a conference with Grant, soon 
after this event, plans for the coming campaign had been fully 
discussed and agreed upon. It was decided that a simultaneous 
forward movement of the eastern and western armies should 
take place in May, one aiming for Eichmond, Virginia, and the 
other for Atlanta, Georgia. In less than fifty days, Sherman 
had concentrated the different army corps at Chattanooga, as 



WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 91 

well as immense stores of arms, ammunition and cannon ; had 
re-organized and drilled his men, remounted and increased his 
cavalry, and made all the arrangements, even to the minutest 
detail, for the expected campaign. On the seventh of May, his 
army of 98,797 effective men (of which 6149 were cavalry and 
4460 artillery) and 254 guns, moved forward to its gigantic 
work — the capture of Atlanta, 130 miles distant. The region 
of Northern Georgia through which they were to pass, abounds 
in rugged hills, narrow and steep defiles and valleys, with rapid 
and deep streams; and is, in all respects, a difficult country for 
military movements. In addition to its natural topographical 
advantages, the Chattanooga and Atlanta railroad threaded 
many of these mountain passes, and these points, therefore, had 
received the special attention and scientific skill of Gen. John- 
ston, the rebel commander, who had added immensely to their 
strength by almost impregnable fortifications. Opposed to the 
Union troops, also, were about 45,000 well trained soldiers, re- 
inforced during the subsequent campaign by nearly 21,000, and 
commanded by Johnston, Hardee, Hood, and other picked gen- 
erals of the Confederacy. Again, while the rebel army, if com- 
pelled to retreat, would be only falling back upon its base of 
supplies, Sherman's army, already 350 miles from the primary 
base at Louisville, and 175 from its secondary base at Nashville, 
was increasing that distance by every step of its advance ; and 
was under the necessity of guarding its long and constantly in- 
creasing line of communications (one, and for a part of the dis- 
tance, two lines of railroad, and in certain conditions of naviga- 
tion, the Tennessee river) from being cut by the rebel cavalry, 
as well as from the attacks of guerrillas. Yet Sherman, during 
the succeeding five months' campaign, retained this line of 
nearly 500 miles, wholly within his control, turning to the sig- 
nal discomfiture of the enemy every attempt which they made 



92 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

to destroy it. Dalfcon, a position of great strength, and which 
could only be reached by the Buzzard Roost's Gap, a narrow 
and lofty defile in the great rock-faced ridge of the Chattoo- 
gata mountains, was the first point of attacli. Protected by a 
formidable abatis, and artificially flooded from a neighboring 
creek, and commanded by heavy batteries, this defile, through 
which the railroad passed, and which ofi'ered the only route to 
Dalton, was impregnable by a front attack. Leaving Thomas 
and Howard to demonstrate vigorously against it, therefore, 
Sherman, with the rest of his army, flanked it by a movement 
through Snake Creek Gap, towards Resaca, on the railroad, 
eighteen miles below Dalton. Johnston, however, fell back on 
Resaca before the Union army had reached it, while Howard 
passed through Dalton close in Johnston's rear. Once in Re- 
saca, Johnston showed fight, and Sherman having pontooned the 
Oostanaula, south of the town, and sent a division to threaten 
Calhoun, the next place on the railroad, and a cavalr^^ division 
to cut up the railroad between Calhoun and Kingston, gave bat- 
tle at Resaca, which place, after two days' heavy fighting, the 
rebel commander abandoned in the night of the 15th, burning 
the bridge behind him, with a loss of some 3500, of whom 
1000 were prisoners, eight guns and a large amount of stores, etc. 
Pressing fiercely on his flying footsteps, Sherman sent the 14th 
corps to Rome, which was captured and garrisoned, and after a 
severe skirmish at Adairsville, he reached Kingston on the 18th, 
captured it, and gave his troops a few days' rest, while he re- 
opened communications with Chattanooga, and brought forward 
supplies for his army. On the 23d, with twenty days' rations, he 
moved forward again, flanking the dangerous defile of Allatoona 
Pass, by a rapid march on the town of Dallas. Johnston, fearing 
for the safety of his railroad communications, felt compelled to 
leave his fortified position and give battle. In rapid succession 



WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHEKMAN. 93 

followed the severe engagements at Burnt Hickor}^ on the 2ith, 
at Punipkinvine creek and at New ETope church, on the 25th, and 
Johnston's grand attack on General McPherson at Dallas, on the 
2Sth, Avherc the former was repulsed with a loss of over three 
thousand. While this had been going on, Sherman had extended 
his left, so as to envelope the rebel right, and to occupy all the 
roads leading eastward towards Allatoona and Ackworth, and 
finally occupied Allatoona Pass with his cavalry, with a feint of 
moving further south. Suddenly, however, he reached Ackworth, 
and Johnston was obliged to fall back, on the 4th of June, to 
Kenesaw mountain, Sherman now fortified and garrisoned 
Allatoona Pass as a secondary base, repaired his communica- 
tions, and on the 9tli of June received full supplies and rein- 
forcements by railroad from Chattanooga. 

Moving forward again, he proceeded to press Johnston, who 
held a finely fortified position in a triangle, formed by the north- 
ern slopes of Pine, Kenesaw, and Lost mountains. After several 
days' artillery practice, General Johnston was found, on the 
morning of the 15th, to have abandoned the first named moun- 
tain, and to be occupying a well intrenched line between the 
two latter. Sherman still pressed him until he evacuated Lost 
mountain, and, finally, was obliged to make another change — 
with Kenesaw as his salient, covering Marietta with his right 
wing, and with his left on Norse's creek, by which means he 
hoped to gain security for his railroad line. A sally by Ilood's 
corps upon the Union lines, on the 22d, was repulsed with a 
heavy loss to the assailants ; and, on the 27th, Sherman made 
an assault upon Johnston's position, which was unsuccessful. 
Despite the heavy loss which they sustained, the Union troops 
were not dispirited, and a skilful manoeuvre by Sherman, com- 
pelled the evacuation of Marietta, on the 2d of July. General 
Johnston remained well intrenched on the west bank of the 



94 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

Chattahoochie, until the 5th, when a flank movement of Sher- 
man compelled him to cross, which he did in good order. But, 
on the 7th and 8th of July, Sherman secured three good points 
for crossing the river, and the Confederates were obliged to fall 
back to Atlanta, leaving their antagonist in full possession of 
the river. AVhile giving his men the brief rest, which they so 
much needed, before his next move on Atlanta, eight miles dis- 
tant, Sherman on the 9th, telegraphed orders to a force of two 
thousand cavalry (which he had already collected at Decatur, 
over two hundred miles in Johnston's rear) to push south and 
break up the railroad connections around Opelika, hy which 
the rebel army got its supplies from central and southern 
Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi, and then join him at 
Marietta. The cavalry, under General Rousseau, set out 
promptly, and, within twelve days, destroyed thirty miles of 
railroad, defeated the rebel General Clantou, and reached Mari- 
etta on the 22d, with a loss of only thirty men. Meanwhile, 
the main army had been enjoying a rest, supplies had been 
brought forward, railroad guards and garrisons strengthened, 
roads and bridges improved and the attention of the rebels 
well diverted by cavalry expeditions which were sent down 
the river. On the 17th, then, a general advance was made, and 
the same evening the Union army formed its line along the 
old Peach Tree road. Tlie next day McPherson and Schofield, 
swinging around upon the Augusta railroad, east of Decatur, 
broke it up most effectually, and, on the 19th, Thomas crossed 
Peach Tree creek on numerous bridges thrown across in face 
of the enemy's lines. All this was accomplished with heavy 
skirmishing, and on the 20th, Hood (who, three days previous, 
had succeeded General Johnston in the supreme command of 
the Confederate army), taking advantage of a gap between two 
corps of the Union army, hurled his whole force upon its left 



WILLIAM TECUMSEII SHERMAN". 95 

wing, with the hope of cutting ort'aiKl routing it. His skilfully 
conceived strutagem, however, was foiled by the unexpected 
steadiness of the Union soldiers, and after a terrible battle the 
enemy was driv^en back to his intrenchments, with a loss of 
over five thousand men. Retreating to his interior lines along 
the creek, forming the outer lines of the defences proper of 
Atlanta, Hood now massed nearly his whole force, and, upon 
the 22d, fell n]>on Sherman's left with great fury. Six times 
during the day his columns desperately charged upon the 
Union lines, but at night he was compelled to withdraw with 
a loss of fully 12,000 men, of whom over 3000 were killed, 
5000 stand of arms and eighteen flags. The Union loss waa 
but 1,720, but among the slain was the able and beloved Major- 
General James B. McPhersou, commander of the army of the 
Tennessee, whose death was not only a serious blow to General 
Sherman, but was generally regarded as a national misfortune. 
The day following this severely contested battle. General Gar- 
rard's cavalry force, which had been sent to Covington, Georgia, 
to break the railroad and bridges near that place, returned to 
headquarters, having fully executed his mission with great 
damage to the rebel cotton and stores, and a considerable num- 
ber of prisoners. An expedition, however, planned by General 
Sherman for the destruction of the Atlanta and Macon, and the 
West Point railroads, with the view of severing Atlanta from 
all its communications and compelling its surrender, was not so 
successful. A portion of it, under General McCook, performed 
its share speedily and well, but the co-operating force under 
General Stoneman unfortunately failed— the general and a 
large number of his men being captured — while McCook was 
obliged to fight his way out ; the whole entailing a heavy loss 
of cavalry to the Union army. 

On the 28th of July, Hood in full force again assaulted the 



96 MEN OF OUR IjAY. 

Union army on the Bell's Ferry road — expecting to catch its 
right flank " in air." He found, however, that Sherman was 
perfectly prepared for him — and, after six desperate assaults, 
gave it up as a bad job, having lost fully 5000 men, which, 
with his losses in the previous battles of the 20th and 23d, 
placed nearly one half of his force hors du combat. Hoping, by 
threatening his communications, to draw Hood out from hi? 
fortifications, Sherman now extended his line southwesterly 
towards East Point. The ruse failed, however, and the only 
alternative remaining to compass the capture of Atlanta, in- 
volved the necessity of another flank movement of the whole 
army, a diflBicult and unwelcome matter both as regarded the 
further removal of the army from its base of supplies and the 
apparent raising of the siege. But there seemed to be no other 
way, and accordingly, on the nights of the 25th and 26th, a por- 
tion of his army was withdrawn to the Chattahoochie, and 
Hood congratulated himself that a cavalry expedition which he 
had sent northward to break the Union connections between 
Allatoon? and Chattanooga, had alarmed Sherman for the 
safety of his communications, and compelled him to raise the 
siege. The joy of the rebels, however, was of short duration ; 
on the 29th of August, they learned that Sherman's army was 
sweeping their own railroad communications at West Point 
with a " besom of destruction" — and on the olst, two rebel 
corps, which had been hastily pushed forward to Jonesboro, 
were heavily repulsed by the advancing Union armies. Find- 
ing his communications now irretrievably lost, by this flank 
movement of his antagonist. Hood retreated, on the night of 
September 1st, to Lovejoy's Station. Atlanta was occupied; 
the next day, by the victorious Union troops, and the city was 
immediately converted into a strictly military post. The loss 
of Atlanta Avas a severe blow to the rebels ; and, under orders 



WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 97 

from President Davis, on tlie 24th of September, Hood ini- 
tiated a series of movements by which he hoped to recover 
not only it, but northern Georgia and east and middle Ten- 
nessee. Sherman, however, kept a watchful eye upon him 
and pursued him closely to Gaylesville, where he could watch 
him intrenched at Will's Gap, in Lookout mountain. Divin- 
ing, further, that Hood meditated a union with General Dick 
Taylor at Tuscumbia, Alabama, and a joint attempt by them, 
for the recovery of middle and east Tennessee, he divided his 
army, giving a share to his trusted friend General George H. 
Thomas, with orders to hold Tennessee against the rebels. 
Then, announcing to his army that he should follow Hood 
northward no longer, but "if he would go to the river, he 
would give him his rations," he moved back to Atlanta, by the 
1st of November, and sent the railroad track, property of value, 
etc., at that city and along the line, to Chattanooga, which 
thenceforward became the outpost of the Union army in that 
direction. Leaving Tennessee safe in Thomas's charge, and 
Schofield to keep the rebels out of Chattanooga and Nashville, 
Sherman now prepared for a campaign which he had already 
projected through Georgia and North Carolina "to the sea." 
" They are at my mercy," he telegraphed to Washington, " and 
I shall strike. Do not be anxious about me. I am all right." 
With the army under his command, consisting of nearly 60,000 
infantry, and 10,000 cavalry, he proposed to cut loose from all 
bases, and, with thirty or forty days' rations and a train of the 
smallest possible dimensions, to move southeastward through 
the very heart of the Confederacy, upon Savannah ; thence, if 
favored by circumstances, to turn northward through North and 
South Carolinas, thus compelling the surrender or evacuation 
of Richmond. With General Sherman, action follows close on 
thought. Destroying all the public buildings of Atlanta, he 



98 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

moved forward iu two columns, the riglit commanded by Gen- 
eral Howard and tlie left by General Slocum, wliile a cloud of 
cavalry floating around the main body, shrouded the real inten- 
tions of the march with a degree of mystery impenetrable to 
the enemy. General Howard's column, accompanied by Gen- 
eral Sherman, passed through East Point, Kough and Eeady, 
Gri-flin, Jonesboro, McDonough, Forsythe, Hillsboro, and Monti- 
cello, reaching Milledgeville, the capital of Georgia, on the 20th 
of November ; thence via Saundersville and Griswold to Louis- 
ville. The left wing, meanwhile, under Slocum, had marched 
through Decatur, Covington, Social Circle, Madison ; threatened 
Macon with attack, then through Buckhead and Queensboro, 
and divided, one part moving towards Augusta, the other to 
Eatonton and Sparta. Here, uniting, they entered Warren and 
finally joined the right wing at Louisville. The whole 'force 
now moved down the left bank of the Ogeechee to Milieu and 
thence to the Savannah canal, where their scouts, on the 9th 
of December, communicated with General Foster and Admiral 
Dahlgren, who where there waiting for their arrival. 

During this magnificent march of three hundred miles, they 
had met with no very serious opposition, and the few troops 
which the rebel generals could muster, were skilfully thro"svn 
out of his way by Sherman's feints on Macon and Augusta — 
by which they were garrisoned for the defence of those cities. 
So completely, indeed, was General Bragg fooled by liis wily 
antagonist, that when Savannah was actually attacked, he was 
unable to come to its relief. Fort McAllister was carried by 
storm, by the Union troops, on the loth of December, and on 
the 16th, the city, which, by some strange oversight, had only a 
garrison of one hundred and fifty men, was summoned to 
surrender. General Hardee, who commanded these, refused, 
vrliereupon Sherman commanded to invest the city, with the 



WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 99 

design of bombarding it. But, on the night of the 20th, under 
cover of a heavy fire from the rebel gunboats and batteries, 
Hardee abandoned tlie city, which was entered the next day by 
the Union army. Into the hands of the victors fell 150 guns, 
13 locomotives, 190 cars, large stores of ammunition and sup- 
plies, 3 steamers, and 33,000 bales of cotton in warehouses. 
The expedition, the entire loss of which was less than 400 men, 
gave freedom to over 20,000 slaves who accompanied it to 
Savannah ; and its course was marked by over 200 miles of 
destroyed railroad, which effectually broke the enemy's con- 
nection with Hood's and Beauregard's armies. Simultaneously, 
also, with their victorious entry into Savannah, Sherman and 
his brave veterans received the welcome news, that the Union 
army in Tennessee, decoying Hood to Nashville, had there 
turned upon him, and utterly rotited him even beyond the 
borders of Alabama. From every quarter, indeed, of Sherman's 
military jurisdiction, came the good news, that in each place his 
subordinates had proved themselves worthy of the trusts com- 
mitted to their ch.arge. Hopefully then, the great leader turned 
to the completion of his self-imposed and herculean task. 

South Carolina — Columbia, its capital, and Charleston, " the 
nest of the rebellion," were yet to be humbled beneath the 
mailed foot of loyalty. Kefreshed, recruited and strengthened 
at every point, the army commenced its march to the northward, 
on the 14th of January, 1865. Two corps (15th and 17th) were 
sent by transports to Beaufort, South Carolina, where they 
were joined by Foster's command, and the whole force moved 
on the Savannah and Charleston railroad. A few days later, 
the two remaining corps (14th and 20th) crossed the Savannah 
river, and de?pite the overflowed and terrible condition of tlie 
roads, struck the railroad between Branchville and Charleston, 
early in February ; compelled the enemy to evacuate the former 



100 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

place on the lith, and breaking up the road so as to eflfeotuHlly 
prevent reinforcement from the west, entering Orangeburg on 
the 16th, and Columbia on the 18th, close on the heels of 
Beauregard's retreating force. This movement flanked Charles- 
ton, and Llardee, finding it untenable, retreated in the light of a 
conflagration, which laid two thirds of the business portion of 
that beautiful city in ashes. On the morning of February 18th, 
the Union troops from Morris island, entered the city, and the 
" old flag" once more floated over Fort Sumter. Moving in two 
columns, the 17th and 20th corps marched from Columbia to 
Winnsboro, thirty miles north, on the Charlotte and Columbia 
railroad, which was thoroughly destroyed. Sending Kilpatrick 
towards Chesterville, in order to delude Beauregard into the be- 
lief that he was moving on that point, Sherman turned east, his 
left wing directed towards Cheraw, and his right threatening 
Florence. On the 3d of March occurred the short and not very 
severe battle of Cheraw, a success for the Union arms, and on the 
next da}-, March -ith. President Lincoln's second inauguration 
was celebrated by a salute from the rebel guns which they had 
captured. On the afternoon and night of the 6th, the Union 
army crossed the Great Pedee river, and in four columns, with 
outlying cavalry, swept through a belt of country forty miles 
wdde, entering Laurel Hill, North Carolina, on the 8th, and 
reaching Fayetteville on the 11th. Thus far, the results of the 
campaign had been, l-l captured cities, hundreds of miles of 
railroads, and thousands of bales of cotton destroyed, 85 cannon, 
4000 prisoners, 25,000 horses, mules, etc., and 15,000 refugees, 
black and white, set at liberty. After a rest of two days, Sher- 
man moved moderately forward, meeting, fighting, and defeating 
the enemy under Johnston, at Averysboro, on the 16th, and 
again, on the 19th, at Bentonville ; finally, pressing them back 
80 swiftly on Smithfield, on the 20th and 21st, that they lost 



I 



WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN 101 

seven guns and over 2000 prisoners, while deserters poured in 
bj hundreds. On the same day Schofield occupied Goldsboro, 
General Terry secured Cox's bridge, and successfully pon- 
tooned the Neuse river, and General Sherman issued a congratu- 
latorj?- order to his troops, in which he says : " After a march of 
the most extraordinary character, nearly five hundred miles, 
over swamps and rivers, deemed impassable to others, at the 
most inclement season of the year, and drawing our chief sup- 
plies from a poor and wasted country, we reach our destination 
in good health and condition — you shall now have rest, and all 
the supplies that can be brought from the rich granaries and 
storehouses of our magnificent country, before again embarking 
on new and untried dangers." The entire Union losses in killed, 
wounded, and prisoners, on this sixty days' march from Savan- 
nah to Goldsboro, had been less than 2500 men. Leaving his 
men to recruit their energies, Sherman went to City Point, 
where, on the 27th of March, he had an interview with General 
Grant and the President, returning to his camp the next day. 

His army was now only separated from Grant's by a distance 
of 150 miles, traversed by a railroad which could easily be put 
in order for immediate use ; and, between the two, as between 
the upper and the nether millstone, the enemy were to be 
crushed by a blow, which, as yet, neither army hastened to give. 

On the 10th of April, Sherman's army, thoroughly rested and 
fully equipped, moved on Smithfield, which they entered on the 
following morning. Johnston, who commanded a large body 
of troops, retired across the Neuse, burning the bridge behind, 
and retreating by railroad. Sherman's men, struggling through 
roads so muddy that they were obliged to corduroy every foot 
of them, were cheered by the news of Lee's surrender, Avhich 
met them en route, and leaving their trains, they pushed ahead 
with redoubled energy, to Raleigh, which they entered in the 



102 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

early morning of tlie 15tli. Sherman now took measures to cut 
off Johnston's retreat, when the latter (knowing, what Sherman 
did not, that Salisbury had been captured by the Union General 
Stoneman on the 12th. thereby closing his own avenue of escape 
to the southward) made overtures for surrender. Interviews 
between the two generals, on the 17th and 18th, (at the latter 
of which General J. C. Breckinridge, then acting Secretary of 
War of the Confederacy, was present) resulted in the drawing 
up of a joint memorandum, to be submitted to the Presidents of 
the United States and of the Confederate Government, and if 
approved by them to be acted upon. The points of this memo- 
randum were briefly as follows : (1) the contending armies to 
remain in statu quo, hostilities not to be resumed until within 
forty-eight hours after due notice from either side ; (2) the 
Confederate armies then in the field to disband, march to 
their respective State capitals, there to deposit their arms and 
public property, and each man to execute an agreement to cease 
from acts of war. The number of arms, etc., to be reported to 
the chief of ordnance at Washington, subject to the future ac- 
tion of the United States Congress, and, meanwhile, to be used 
only to maintain peace and order within the borders of the 
several States; (3) the recognition, by the Executive of the 
United States, of the several State governments, on their officers 
and legislatures taking the oath prescribed by the Constitution 
of the United States ; and the legitimacy of any conflicting 
State governments to which the war may have given rise, to be 
submitted to the Supreme Court of the United States ; (4) the 
re-establishment of all Federal courts in the several States, with 
powers as defined by the Constitution and laws of Congress; 
(5) the guarantee, b}^ the Executive, to the people of all the States, 
of their political rights and franchises, as well as personal and 
propel .y rights, according to the Constitutions of the United 



I 



WILLIAM TKCUMSEH SHERMAN. 103 

States and the several States; (6) tlic people not to be dis- 
turbed by the United States Government, on account of the late 
war, so long as they lived in peace, obeyed their local laws, and 
abstained from acts of ai*med hostility ; (7) on the above condi- 
tions, a general amnesty. This agreement, which was evidently 
entered into by Sherman under the full conviction that slavery 
ivas dead and the rebellion totally crushed, was received at 
Washington, by the Cabinet, just at the moment that their 
hearts and the public mind were intensely agitated and confused 
by the recent atrocious assassination of President Lincoln, the 
attempt on Secretary Seward's life, and tlie other startling 
events of the day. To men in such a frame of mind, and 
when read by the light of surrounding circumstances, its terms 
seemed nnpardonably liberal. Forgetting that his action coin- 
cided exactly with the published policy of the late President 
(in his permission [April 7th] to the A^irginia legislature to 
meet and adopt such measures as should withdraw the State 
troops from the Confederate force) ; and forgetting, also, that 
Sherman, in his recent great march, had been completely isola- 
ted from the outside world, and was ignorant of any change of 
policy on the part of the new Presideni — the Cabinet set the 
seal of its disapproval upon the course which the gallant chief- 
tain had submitted to their consideration. Yet, it is worthy of 
note, that, as events have since turned, the relations of these 
States to the Union have been based upon the identical policy 
which Sherman's course then indicated. General Grant went, 
therefore, immediately to Raleigh, where he arrived on the 24th, 
and Sherman promptly notified the enemy of the termination 
of the armistice at the end of forty-eight hours. Johnston im- 
mediately signified to Sherman his desire for a conference, which 
resulted, on the 26th, in the surrender of the Confederate army 
to General Sherman, on the terms awarded to General Lee 



104 MEN- OF OUR DAY. 

30,000 soldiers, 15,000 muskets, 108 pieces of artillery were 
surrendered, and the war of the rebellion was virtually ended. 
On the 4th of May, the greater part of his army moved northward 
to Richmond and "Washington, where they were reviewed. May 
24th, 1865, and about two thirds of them disbanded, the war 
having so nearly closed, as to render their furtlier presence in 
the field unnecessary. 

From June 27th, 1865, to August 11th, 1866, General Sherman 
held the command of the Military Division of the Mississippi 
(including Ohio, Missouri, and Arkansas), with headquarters 
at St. Louis ; and, from the latter date, of the Military Division 
of Missouri, which command he now retains. He was also 
appointed a member of the Board to make recommendations for 
brevets to general officers, March 14th to 24th, 1866 ; and was 
sent on a special mission to Mexico, in November and Decem- 
ber, 1866. On the 25th of July, 1866, by vote of Congress, he 
was created Lieutenant-General of the United States 
Army, a deserved acknowledgment of his valor, skill, and 
patriotism. On the 19th of the same month, he received from 
Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, the honorary degree of 
Doctor of Laws, a compliment not unfitting one who, while 
wielding the sword, has displayed a singularly acute and com- 
prehensive understanding of the principles of civil and politi- 
cal law. 

This great soldier is tall and slender in person, vigorous and 
enduring in action, and* nervous in temperament, with manners 
somewhat hnisque and austere, and a quick, rervous way of 
speaking. He is a great smoker, requires bu: little sleep, and 
is a close and somewhat abstracted thinker. As a writer, he 
expresses himself with remarkable terseness and force, often 
condensing a whole volume of military law in a single sentence. 
With an imperious will, which naturally brooks no control, he 



WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 105 

always recognizes, that " unhesitating obedience is the first duty 
of the soldier." He well merits the commendation bestowed 
upon him by the ablest European military critics, " of being the 
most complete master of logistics, and of the management of 
the movable column, of modern times." He is one of the very 
few men, of whom not a dozen are to be found in a century, 
who can handle with masterly skill, and without confusion, an 
army of a hundred thousand men or more. His soldiers idolize 
him, for they have ample evidence that their every want and 
comfort are looked after by the gruff phieftain, who is always 
willing to share their privations and their dangers. His patriot- 
ism is of the purest type, untouched, as yet, by the breath of 
Blander, or the defiling slime of political strife. 



VICE-ADMIRAL DAVID D. PORTER. 



^® . . . . . J 

^F courage and splendid fighting qualities are inherited, 

Admiral Porter should be, as he is, one of the best fight- 
ing men in the navy, for he is the youngest son of that 
b old Viking, Commodore David Porter, who, in the war 
of 1812, was the terror of the British marine, and who, while, 
unlike Semmes of the Alabama, he never let slip an opportunity 
of engaging a war vessel of the enemy, even if she carried twice 
his armament, made worse havoc with their mercantile marine 
than Semmes "did with ours. The career of the frigate Essex, 
and her untoward fate, made the old commodore a hero for the 
rest of his life. After the close of the war he served as a mem- 
ber of the board of Navy Commissioners from 1815 to 1823, 
but the longing for the sea was too strong for him to overcome, 
and an opportunity occurring for a cruise to destroy the pirates 
who were infesting the West Indies, he gladly took command, 
and served two years, when, having punished with some severity 
an insult offered by the authorities of one of the islands, he was 
called home, and a naval court martial having decided that he 
had transcended his authority, he was suspended from command 
for six months. He resigned soon after, and for the next four 
years was commander-in-chief of the naval forces of I^Iexico. 
Returning to the United States in 1829 lie was appointed consul 

general to the Barbary powers, and thence transferred first as 
106 



VICE-ADMIRAL DAVID D. PORTER. 107 

charge and afterward as minister, to Constantinople, where Le 
remained till hia death in 1843. 

His youngest son, David D. Porter, was born in Philadel- 
phia about 181-1, and, while still a child, accompanied his father 
in his cruise after the pirates in 1823-25. We believe he was 
also with him in Alexico. 

On the 2d of February, 1829, he received his warrant as mid- 
shipman, being appointed from Pennsylvania. He was ordered 
to the frigate Constellation, thirty-six guns, stationed in the 
IMediterranean, under Commodore Biddle and Captain Wads- 
worth. 

In 1831, the Constellation was ordered home, and laid up in 
ordinary at Norfolk, and Porter was granted leave of absence, 
after which, in 1832, he was ordered back to the Mediterranean 
on the new flag-ship United States, a forty-four gun frigate, 
under Captain Nicholson, Commodore Patterson having charge 
of the squadron. On the 3d of July, 1835, he passed his ex- 
amination, and was recommended for early promotion. During 
the years 1836 to 181:1, he was appointed on the Coast Survey 
and exjiloring expeditions, and stood on the list of passed mid- 
shipmen at the following numbers: — January 1, 1838, No. Ill; 
January 1, 1839, No. 84 ; January 1, 1810, No. 61, and January 
1, 1811, at No. 48. 

On the 27th of February, 1841, he was commissioned a 
lieutenant, and ordered to the frigate Congress, a forty-four 
gun vessel-of-war. He then rejoined the Mediterranean squad- 
ron, and after a short time this vessel was ordered on the 
Brazilian station. He still retained his position on the same 
craft, and was on her more than four years ; for his name is re- 
corded as one of her lieutenants on the rolls of the Navy Depart- 
men: for the years commencing January 1, 1842, 1843, 1844, and 
1845. He had not risen much during these years ; for on th© 



108 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

first mentioned date his name stood at N:, 267 on the list of 
lieutenants ; on the second at No. 258 ; on the third at No. 245, 
and on the last at No. 232. At the latter end of 1845 he was 
attached to the Observatory at Washington on special duty, 
which position he still held at the commencement and during a 
portion of 1846. He then stood No. 228 on the list. On 
January 1, 1847, after having performed some brilliant exploits 
in the Gulf of Mexico during the Mexican war, he is recorded 
as being in charge of the rendezvous at New Orleans, from 
which he was detached to again join the Coast Survey, on 
which service his name is recorded on January 1, 1848. Dur- 
ing this year he was appointed to the command of the schooner 
Petrel, engaged on this survey. 

In February, 1849, he left New York as the commander of 
the steamship Panama, the third of the vessels constituting the 
line of American mail steamers first established for service on 
the Pacific. The pioneer passage of the Panama was attended 
with incidents which displayed on the part of the commander 
courage, caution, patience, and thoroughly competent qualifica- 
tions for the post to which he had been assigned. After taking 
the vessel safely to Panama Bay, he was ordered to New York 
to the command of the mail steamer Georgia, which command 
he held during the latter part of 1850, the years 1851 and 1852, 
and a great portion of 1853. 

Amongst the many gallant exploits of Admiral Porter was 
that of running the steamer Crescent City (appropriately named) 
into the harbor of Havana, during the excitement between the 
two countries relative to the ship Black "Warrior. The Spanish 
government had refused to permit any United States vessel to 
enter that port. Running under the shotted guns of Moro Cas- 
tle, he was ordered to halt. He promptly replied that he car- 
ried the United States flag and the United States mails, and, by 



VICE-ADMIRAL DAVID D. PORTER. 109 

the Eternal, ne would go in ; and lie did, tlie Ilabaneros fearing 
to fire upon him. lie said afterwards that he intended firing 
his six-poundsr at tliem once in defiance, after which he would 
haul down hi= flag. During the Mexican war, Admiral Porter, 
then a lieutenant, took a very active part in the naval portion 
of that conflict. He was the executive officer and first 
lieutenant under the famous Commodore Tatnall, who had 
charge of the mosquito fleet in the waters of the Gulf. Their 
adventures before Vera Cruz are not likely soon to be forgotten. 

On the 1st of January, 1854, he is recorded absent again on 
leave, and at the beginning of the next year awaiting orders. 
His name now stood at No. 138. During 1855 he was ordered 
to the command of the storeship Supply, and held this com- 
mand during the next year, until February, 1857. He wag 
then ordered on shore duty, and on the 1st of January, 1860, 
was at the Navy Yard at Portsmouth as third in command. 

At the beginning of the year 1861, he was under orders to 
join the Coast Survey on the Pacific, but, fortunately, had not 
left when the rebellion broke out. His name at this time stood 
number six on the list of lieutenants. The resignation of 
several naval traitors left room for his advancement, and the 
"Naval Register" for August 31, 1861, places him number 
seventy-seven on the list of commanders, with twenty others 
between him and the next grade of rank below. He was then 
placed in command of the steam sloop-of-war Powhatan, a vessel 
of about twenty-five hundred tons, and armed with eleven guns. 
In her he took part in one section of the blockading squadron, 
and left that ship to take the special charge of the mortar expe- 
dition. The active part he took in the reduction of the forts 
below New Orleans will make his name ^ver memorable in 
connection with the mortar fleet, or " bummers," as the sailors 
term them. After the cap.ure of New Orleans he, with hia 



110 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

fleet, went up tlie Mississippi river, and was engaged in several 
affairs on that river, including that of Yicksbuig From that 
place he was ordered to the James river, and returned in the 
Octorara. When off Charleston, on his way to Fortress Monroe, 
lie fell in with and captured the Anglo-rebel steamer Tubal 
Cain. It was at first supposed that he would have been placed 
in command of the James river flotilla; but from some cause 
this plan was changed. He was allowed leave of absence to 
recruit his health, while his mortar fleet was engaged on the 
Chesapeake and in front of Baltimore. 

In October, 1862, he was appointed to the command of the 
Mississippi gunboat flotilla, as successor to Commodore' Davis, 
with the rank of acting rear-admiral, and was required to 
co-operate with General Grant in the assault and siege of Vicks- 
burg. His services in that siege form a record of which any 
man might be proud. His squadron was a large one, composed 
of vessels of all sizes, many of them constructed under his own 
supervision, and a considerable number were armed steamers, 
plated with from three to four and a half inches of iron and 
capable of resisting the shot of any but the heaviest batteries. 
His previous very thorough knowledge of the Mississippi river 
was of great advantage to him in this service, as well as 
in his operations previously and subsequently in the lower 
Mississippi. In General Grant he evidently found a co-worker 
after his own heart, for imperious and exacting as the admiral's 
temper is, they had no difficulties, and he entered most heartily 
into all the general's efforts to find a suitable point for assailing 
successfully the Gibraltar of the rebellion. Previous to the 
coming of General Grant's army to Young's Point, Admiral 
Porter had cleared* the lower Yazoo of torpedoes, losing one 
gunboat (the Cairo) in the attempt ; had assisted Gee eral Sher- 
man to the utmost of his ability in his attack upon Chickasaw 



VICE-ADMIRAL DAVID D. PORTER. Ill 

Bluffs; and accompanying General McClcrnand in his expedi- 
tion to the post of Arkansas and the White river, nad bom- 
barded the fort (Fort Ilindinan) till it surrendered, and broken 
up the other small forts and driven out the njbel steamers on 
the White river. lie also succeeded in blockading eleven rebel 
steamers in the Yazoo. Ilis activity dunng the next six 
months was incessant ; now sending gunboats and rams down 
the river past the batteries of Yicksburg to destroy the rebel 
rams and steamers and capture the supplies intended for Vicks- 
burg and Port Iludson ; then firing at the upper or lower 
batteries of Vicksburg, cutting the levee at Yazoo pass and en- 
deavoring to force a passage through the Yallobusha and 
Tallahatchee into the Yazoo ; and failing in this, cutting his 
way tlirough the labyrinth of bayous and creeks to attain the 
aame end. These exercises were varied by sending occasional- 
ly a coal barge fitted up as a monitor, past the batteries, 
greatly to the fright of the rebels, who, after concentrating the 
fires of their batteries on the contrivance witliout eifect, were 
so badly scared as to destroy the best gunboat (the Indiauola 
taken from Lieutenant Commander Brown) they had on the 
river, from fear of its capture by this formidable monitor. 
Then came the hazardous experiment of running gunboats 
past the batteries, twice repeated, to aid General Grant in his 
movement to approach Yicksburg from below and from the 
rear. The success of these enterprises, only two transports out 
of sixteen or eighteen, and none of the gunboats, being destroyed, 
was remarkable, and of itself evinced great skill and caution on 
the part of the admiral. The fight at Grand Gulf was a severe 
one, and not successful, but the night following the batteries 
were run, and the troops ferried over to Bruinsburg, from 
whence they marched to Jackson and to the rear of Yicksburg. 
Meanwhile a part of the spuadron had been engaged in aiding 



112 MEN OF OUR DAT. 

Shermau in making a demonstration on Haines' Bluff to draw 
off the attention of the rebels from Grant's approach by the 
south. 

When, on the 19th of May, Grant's army made their first 
assault on the rear of Vicksburg, and on the 22d of May, when 
the second assault was made, Admiral Porter maintained a 
heavy fire in front, to distract the attention of the rebels ; and 
during the whole siege, whenever a ball or shell could be 
thrown from his squadron either above or below the city with 
good effect, it was promptly and accurately hurled. The sur- 
render of Yicksburg, on the 4th of July, and of Port Hudson 
on the 9th, opened the Mississippi to our fleet and to merchant 
steamers, and thenceforth the fleet on the Mississippi acted 
only as an armed river patrol. The duties of the squadron in 
these respects were, however, somewhat arduous for a time. 
The Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, and the Ohio, were in- 
cluded within its cruising ground ; and the pursuit of Morgan's 
expedition to Buffington island, and the repressing of occasional 
rebel raids, kept them almost constantly on the alert. 

Early in March, 1864, Admiral Porter ascended the Eed 
river to co-operate with General Banks in his expedition to 
break up the rebel posts on that river, and penetrate by that 
route into Texas. The expedition was at first successful, and 
captured the forts of the enemy, and their principal towns, in a 
series of brief engagements. But, as they, ascended the river, 
the greed of gain seemed to take possession of the squadron, 
and large quantities of cotton were gathered up from both 
shores of the river and brought on board the gunboats ; and 
they were forced so far up the falling stream, that they were in 
great danger of being unable to return, and so of becoming a prey 
to the rebels. The army, too, had been seriously repulsed, and 
had made a somewhat hasty retreat as far as Grand Ecore. 



VICE-ADMIRAL DAVID D. TOKTER. Ho 

From this point downward the squadron was in constant 
trouble — the larger vessels getting aground, hard and fast, 
several times a day, and being compelled to tie up at night; 
harassed almost every hour by small bodies of rebel troops, 
whom they could only keep off by a free use of canister and 
grape shot ; not making more than thirty miles a day, and the 
river constantly falling. At length, thirty miles below Grand 
Ecore, the Eastport, the largest vessel of the squadron, stuck 
fast and hard upon the rocks in the channel, and could not be 
moved ; and tlie admiral was compelled to give orders for her 
destruction. The attempt made by the rebels to board the 
Cricket, another of his gunboats, at this juncture, was so se- 
verely punished, that they disappeared, and were not seen again 
until the mouth of Cane river, twenty miles below, was reached. 
Here was a rebel battery of eighteen guns, and a severe fight 
ensued. The Cricket, which was but lightly armed (being, as 
the men were in the habit of saying, only " tin clad"), was very 
badly cat up, almost every shot going through her, two of her 
guns being disabled, and half her crew, and her pilot, and chief 
engineer, being either killed or badly wounded. Here the 
splendid personal bravery of Admiral Porter proved their sal- 
vation. He improvised gunners from the negroes on board, 
put an assistant in the place of the chief engineer, took the helm 
himself, and ran past the battery under a terrific fire, which he 
returned steadily with such of his guns as were still serviceable. 
The other gunboats, though sadly injured, at length got by — 
the Champion, only, being so much disabled as to be unable to 
go on, and being destroyed by order of Admiral Porter. 

On reaching Alexandria, matters were still worse. In the 
low stage of water, the rapids were impassable by the gun- 
boats, and at first tlieir destruction seemed inevitable. But 
the engineer of the Isineteenth army corps, Lieutenant-Colonel 



114: MEX OF OUR DAY. 

Joseph Bailey (afterward promoted to tlie rank of brigadier- 
general for this great service), devised a way of floating thera 
over the rapids, by the construction of a series of wing-dams 
partly across the river at several points. The task was hercu- 
lean, but it was skilfully and speedily accomplished, and by the 
13th of May all the gunboats had passed the barrier and were 
on their way to the Mississippi river, still one hundred and fifty 
miles distant. Before this time, however, two small gunboats 
and two transports, laden with troops, were attacked by the 
rebels, and both the transports and one gunboat captured, and 
the other burned. Admiral Porter returned to his patrol of 
the Mississippi, from whence, soon after, he was transferred to 
the command of the North Atlantic squadron. Here he was 
busy, for a time, with the removal of torpedoes in the naviga- 
ble waters of Virginia and North Carolina ; in capturing block- 
ade runners ; and cruising after the pirates who seized our 
merchant steamers. But his restless activity and energy could 
not be satisfied without striking a blow at the chief port of 
entry for which the blockade runners aimed, and into which at 
least seven out of every ten succeeded in entering. AYilming- 
ton. North Carolina, had, during the whole war, been one of 
the chief seats of the contraband trade of the rebels, and the 
blockade runners had been more successful in eluding the vigi- 
lance, or escaping from the pursuit of the blockading squadron 
there, than either at Charleston or Mobile. This was due in 
part to its position, and the defences of the harbor. Five forts 
protected the entrance to the estuary of Cape Fear river ; and 
while they were sufficient to prevent any access to the river by 
the blockading squadron, they effectually shielded the block- 
ade runners, who succeeded in effecting an entrance, by either 
inlet, to the estuary. Of these works, Fort Fisher, one of the 
most formidable earthworks on the coast, was the chief ; ao'l it 



VICE-ADMIRAL DAVID D. PORTER. 115 

was to the reduction of this, that tlie attention of Rear- Admiral 
Porter* was directed. The Navy Department, which liad been 
instrumental in his transfer to the North Atlantic squadron, 
heartily seconded his efforts ; and an arrangement having been 
made with General Grant for the necessaiy land forces to co- 
operate with tlie squadron, a fleet of naval vessels,, surpassing 
in numbers and equipments any that had been assembled during 
the war, was collected with dispatch in Hampton Roads. Yari- 
ous circumstances delayed the attack until the 24th of Decem- 
ber, 186-i. What followed, is best related in the report of the 
Secretary of the Navy. 

"On that day (December 24), Rear-Admiral Porter, with a bom- 
barding force of thirty-seven vessels, five of which were iron- 
clad, and a reserve force of nineteen vessels, attacked the forts 
at the mouth of Cape Fear river, and silenced them in one hour 
and a quarter ; but there being no troops to make an assault or 
attempt to possess them, nothing beyond the injury inflicted on 
the works and the garrison was accomplished by the bombard- 
ment. A renewed attack was made the succeeding day, but 
with scarcely better results. The fleet shelled the forts during 
the day and silenced them, but no assault was made, or attempt- 
ed, by the troops which had been disembarked for that purpose. 
Major-General Butler, who commanded the co-operating force^ 
after a reconnoissance, came to the conclusion that the place 
could not be carried by an assault. He therefore ordered a re- 
embarkation, and informing Rear- Admiral Porter of his intention, 
returned with his command to flampton Roads. Immediate 
information of the failure of the expedition Avas forwarded to 
the department by Rear- Admiral Porter, who remained in the 

* He was jnade full rear-admiral for his gallant services in the siege of 
Vicksburg, his commission dating from Jnly 4th, 1863. 



116 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

vicinity with bis entire fleet, awaiting the needful military aid. 
Aware of the necessity of rcilucing these works, and of the 
great importance which the Department attatched to closing the 
port of Wilmington, and confident that with adequate military 
co-operation the fort could be carried, he asked for such co- 
operation, and earnestly requested that the enterprise should not 
be abandoned. In this the department and the President fully 
concurred. On the suggestion of the President, Lieutenant- 
General Grant was advised of the confidence felt by Rear- Admi- 
ral Porter that he could obtain complete success, provided he 
should be sufficiently sustained. Such military aid was there- 
fore invited as would insure the fall of Fort Fisher. 

A second military force was promptly detailed, composed of 
about 8,500 men, under the command of Major-General A. H. 
Terry, and sent forward. This officer arrived off Fort Fisher, 
on the 13th of January. Offensive operations were at once 
resumed by the naval force, and the troops were landed and 
intrenched themselves, while a portion of the fleet bombarded 
the works. These operations were continued throughout the 
1-ith Avith an increased number of vessels. The loth was the 
day decided upon for an assault. During the forenoon of that 
day, forty-four vessels poured an incessant fire into the rebel 
forts. There was, besides, a force of fourteen vessels in reserve. 
At 3 P. M., the signal for the assault was made. Desperate fight- 
ing ensued, traverse after traverse was taken, and by 10 P. M. 
the works were all carried, and the flag of the Union floated 
over them. Fourteen hundred sailors and marines were landed, 
and participated in the direct assault. 

Seventy-five guns, many of them superb rifle pieces, and 

1,900 prisoners, were the immediate fruits and trophies of the 

victory ; but the chief value and ultimate benefit of this grand 

■ achiievement, consisted in closing the main gate through which 



VICE-ADMlRAi. UAVIb L PORTER. li/ 

tlie insurgents liad received supplies from abroad, and sent their 
own pi'oducts to foreign markets in exchange. 

Light-drauglit steamers were immediately pushed over the 
har, and into the river, the channel of which was speedily 
buoyed, and the removal of torpedoes forthwith commenced. 
The rebels witnessing the fall of Fort Fisher, at once evacuated 
and blew up Fort Caswell, destroyed Bald Head Fort and Fort 
Shaw, and abandoned Fort Campbell. Within twenty-four 
hours after the fall of Fort Fisher, the main defence of Cape 
Fear river, the entire chain of formidable works in the vicinity 
shared its fate, placing in our possession one hundred and sixty- 
eight guns of heavy calibre. 

The heavier naval vessels, being no longer needed in that 
quarter, were dispatched in different directions — some to James 
river and northern ports, others to the Gulf or the South Atlan- 
tic squadron. An ample force was retained, however, to sup- 
port the small but brave army which had carried the traverses 
of Fort Fisher, and enable it, when reinforcements should arrive, 
to continue the movement on Wilmington, 

Great caution was necessary in removing the torpedoes, 
always formidable in harbors and internal waters, and which 
have been more destructive to our naval vessels than all other 
means combined. 

xA.bout the middle of February, offensive operations were 
resumed in the direction of Wilmington, the vessels and th(? 
troops moving up the river in concert. Fort Anderson, au 
important work, was evacuated during the night of the 18th of 
February, General Schofield advancing upon this fort with 
8,000 men, while the gunboats attacked it by water. 

On the 21st, the rebels were driven from Fort Strong, which 
left the way to Wilmington unobstructed, and on the 22d of 
February, that city was evacuated. Two hundred and twelve 



118 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

guus were takeu in tbe works from the entrance to Old river, 
including those near the city, and thus this great and brilliant 
achievement Avas completed." 

The failure of General Butler to make the attack when ex- 
pected, though it would seem to have been justified by the 
dictates of prudence, and to have been in no respect due to any 
want of personal courage or daring on the part of the general, 
was very annoying to Bear- Admiral Porter, and led to an acri- 
monious correspondence between the two parties, neither of 
whom were at all chary in their abuse of each other. 

The termination of the war soon after the capture of AVil- 
niington, left little more active service for tlie North Atlantic 
squadron, and its reduction and consolidation with the South 
Atlantic squadron followed in June, 1865. Before this, how- 
ever, on the 2Sth of April, Eear- Admiral Porter had been re- 
lieved, at his own request, of the command of the squadron, 
and Acting Rear- Admiral Ptadford succeeded him. In the few 
months' leave of absence granted him, he visited Europe. 

In September, 1865, when the Naval Academy was brought 
back to Annapolis, and partially re-organized, Eear-Admiral 
Porter was appointed its superintendent, and has remained in 
that position since that time. He has infused new energy and 
character into the instruction there, and the Academy is now a 
v.'orthy counterpart of the Military Academy at West Point. 
()u the 25tli of July, 1866, Vice-Admiral Farragut being pro- 
moted to the new rank of Admiral, Rear- Admiral Porter was 
advanced to the Vice-admiralt}^ 

Vice-Admiral Porter is a man of fine, commanding personal 
appearance ; of medium height, handsome features, a wiry, mus- 
cular frame, and of great pliysical power, and capacity for 
endurance. He is an accomplished scholar, speaks Reveral 
languages fluently, and plays the harp, guitar, and other musical 



VICE-ADMIRAL DAVID D. TORTER. Il9 

instruments well, lie is of imperious and cxactiug temper, and 
tolerates notliing short of the most rigid obedience to his orders ; 
yet he has always had the ability to rouse the highest enthu- 
siasm in the men under his command. T<j this, undoubtedly, 
his superb personal courage largely contributed. No man in 
his squadron ever doubted that the admiral was ready to incur 
any risk which he asked others to incur. Indeed, he often ex- 
posed himself unwtirrantably to the fire of the enemy. Take 
him all in all, he is Avell worthy to hand dcwn to posterity the 
reputation of the gallant old commodore of the early days of 
the republic. 



MAJOR-GENERAL PHILIP H. SHERIDAN. 



c) %0 INGE General Sheridan became famous, tlie lienor of 
^M?!^ being bis birth-place has been claimed by almost as 
many places as contended for the same honor in the 
case oP Homer. Enthusiastic Irishmen have insisted that 
he first saw the light in county Cavan, Ireland ; the army regis- 
ter for years credited ^lassachusetts with being the State in 
which he was born ; the newspaper correspondents, knowing 
men that they are, have traced him to Albany, New York, 
where, they say, he was born while his parents were en route for 
Ohio; while the general himself, who being a party to the 
transaction should know something about it, and Avluit is still 
more to the purpose, his parents, testify that he was born in 
Somerset, Perry county, Ohio, on the 6th of March, 1831. His 
parents were then recent emigrants from county Cavan, Ireland, 
but were not of the Scotch Irish stock so largel}'- predominent 
in that county, but belonged to one of the original Celtic and 
Eoman Catholic families of the county. 

Vain has been thS attempt to find any of those incidents 
which foreshadow greatness, in the boyhood of the futui'e 
cavalry general. He was a wild, roguish, fun-loving Irish boy, 
probably fond of horses, though the Rev. P. C. Headley's story 
about his riding a half broken vicious horse when only five years 
old is pronounced by the general himself an entire fabrication. He 
120 



MAJOR-GENERAL PHILIP n, SHERIDAN. 121 

went to school to an Irish schoolmaster for a time when about 
ten or twelve years old, one of Goldsmith's sort : — 

" A man severe he wa.s, and stern to view ; 
I knew him well, and every truant know ; 
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace 
The day's disasters in hia morning face." 

This pedagogue gave the mischievous uiohin his full share 
of the birch, incited thereto, as one of Sheridan's schoolmates 
affirms, by the recollection of an occurrence in which Phil got 
the bettor of him. The story is substantially this : Avhcn Sheri- 
dan was about eleven or twelve years old, on a cold winter's 
morning, two of his schoolmates came early to the schoolhouse, 
and finding the teacher, McNanly, not yet ari'ived, prepared a 
somewhat unpleasant surprise for him, in the shape of a pailful 
of icy water suspended over the schoolhouse door, in such a 
way that its contents would descend upon the head of the one 
who should first open the door. This arranged they withdrew 
to a neighboring haymow, and waited to see the fun. McNanly 
soon came, unlocked the door and received the ducking, winch 
naturally aroused his not very placable temper. He sat down 
to watch, resolved to give the first boy who should come, a terri- 
ble thrashing. A little fellow who happened to be first was 
caught by the neck and shaken fiercely, but being convinced 
that he knew nothing of it, the teacher dropped him and waited 
for another. Each boy in turn was throttled and shaken, the 
two real ofienders among the rest, but as all denied it, McNanly 
still waited for his victims. At length Phil. Sheridan came, 
somewhat late, as usual, and convinced that he had now the real 
culprit, McNanly made a dive for him; the boy dodged and 
ran, and the teacher after him, bare headed and brandishing his 
stick. Phil did his best, but his legs were short, and when he 
reached his father's yard McNanly was almost upon him, and 



122 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

he bolted through the gate, the teacher following at full speed, 
when a new tilly suddenly came to Phil's relief. This was no 
other than a large Newfoundland dog, the boy's playmate and 
pet, who seeing his young master in trouble, sprang upon tho 
teacher, who, frightened sadly, climbed the nearest tree with 
great agility. " Take away your divilish dog," he cried, " or 
I'll bate the life out of ye." " Like to see you," said the boy, 
as he very coolly brought a bit of old carpet, threw it under the 
tree and ordered Eover to " watch him." The dog obey jd and 
Phil mounted the fence and looked, somewhat impudently, wo 
fear, at his teacher, the whole school meantime being gathered 
close by to see the end. McNanly's clothing was none of the 
warmest, and his cold bath and violent exercise had thrown him 
into a violent perspiration, and he was now shivering with the 
cold. " What d'ye want to lick me for ?" queried Phil. " What 
did ye throw the wather on me for?" asked the teacher; "I 
didn't throw any wather on you," said the boy. " What did 
ye run so for, thin ?" " Cause I saw ye was going to lick me," 
said Phil. " Well, call off the dog." " Not till ye promise ye 
won't lick me. Watch him, Rover." This last order was given 
as the teacher was trying to get down, and the dog in response 
seized him by the leg. Mr. Sheridan now came out, and 
McNanly appealed to him, declaring that he must lick Phil, for 
the sake of the discipline of the school, for the boys were all 
laughing at him now. Mr. Sheridan called to the dog, but he 
would not move, and doubting perhaps whether Phil deserved 
a thrashing, he returned into the house. "You'd better prom- 
ise," said Phil, " for the dog won't mind anybody but me, and I 
can stay here all day." At length, nearly perished with the 
cold, McNanly promised that he wouldn't lick him that time, and 
the boy, calling to Rover, allowed the master to descend- Th* 



MAJOR-GENERAL PHILIP H. SHERIDAN. 123 

subsequent wliippings, Phil used to say, bad interest added to 
tbem, on account of tbis, 

Sberidan was fond of matbematics, and managed to pick up a 
fair knowledge of figures in school. At the ago of about fifteen 
be was taken as a clerk by Mr. Talbot, a hardware dealer of the 
village, who, finding him active, intelligent, and faithful, gave 
him further instruction in mathematics and guided him in his 
reading. After a time, as a better position offered, he helped 
him to get it, and he became a clerk for Mr. Ilenry Detton. 
Not long after General Thomas Kitchey was the Congressman 
from the district, and had in his gift an appointment to a vacancy 
at West Point. For this place there was a strong competition. 
Sons of wealthy parents came, or sent to him their applications 
with a long list of influential names. At length one letter came 
without recommendations or references. It merely asked that 
the place might be given to the writer and was signed, " Phil 
Sheridan." General Eitchey, who had known the boy for a 
long time and had marked his faithfulness and love of study, 
gave him the appointment at once. 

Sheridan Avas at this time (1848), seventeen years old. Among 
his classmates were James B. McPherson, Schofield, Sill, Tyler., 
and the rebel General Hood. His scholarship at West Point 
w^as above mediocrity, but his animal spirits were so constantly 
running over, and his pugnacity was so much in the ascendancy, 
that he was always receiving demerit marks in the conduct 
column. One of the cadets insulted him, and he proceeded to 
redress his own grievances, by giving the offender a severe 
thrashing. This conduct, some of the officers of the academy 
believed justifiable, but it was unniilitary, and, as a result, 
Sheridan was suspended and thrown into, the class below, so 
that he did not graduate till 1853, when he stood thirty-fourth 
in a class of fifty-two. He was ordered to duty as brevet second 



12i MEX OF OUR DAY. 

lieutenant of infantry, but at first without being assigned to any 
particular regiment, and after serving in garrison at Newport 
barracks, Kentucky, for a few months, was sent in the begin- 
ning of 1854, to the Texas frontier, where for nearly two years, 
he served at Fort Duncan, La Peiia, and Turkey creek. Texas. 
He received his commission as full second lieutenant, while in 
Texas, November 22d, 185-4. Keturning east, after a short 
period of garrison duty at Fort Columbus, New York, he was 
ordered to escort duty from Sacramento, California, to Colum- 
bia river, Oregon, and then on a series of expeditions among 
the Indians, for a year. He was next assigned to the military 
posts at Forts Haskins and Yamhill, where he endeavored to 
make peace with the Indians, learned their dialects, and won 
their regard to such an extent that he could accomplish what 
be pleased with them. On the 1st of March, 18(31, he was pro- 
moted to a first lieutenancy in the fourth infiintry, and ten 
weeks later. May 14th, a commission was sent him as captain 
in the thirteenth infantry, and with it, news of the impending 
war. lie was ready for it, and wrote to a friend in the State: 
" If they will fight us, let them know we accept the challenge. 
Who knows? Perhaps I may have a' chance to rais.:; a major's 
commission." A modest ambition, certainly for the man who 
within four years was to demonstrate his title to be regarded as 
the ablest living cavahy general, lie was ordered to report 
at Jefferson barracks, Missouri. He arrived in the midst of the 
confusion that followed the removal of Fremont from ('.<jinmand. 
Nothing could be a more droll illustration of the frequent 
governmental faculty for getting the wrong men in the right 
places than the assignment that awaited the 3'oung Indian 
fighter. He was made president of a board to audit claims 
under the Fremont administration. He did the work satisfac- 
torily, however ; and presently the Government, fully satisfied 



MAJOR-GENEIiAL PHILIP H. SnERIDAN. I'lo 

now, tliat liore was a good man for routine and clerical duties, 
made him quartermaster and commissary for Curtis, at the 
outset of the Pea Ridge campaign. 

All this seemed rapid promotion to Captain Sheridan, and 
he went to \V(3i"k heartily and earnestly to make a quartermas- 
ter of hinit^elf lie was sixty-fourth captain on the list — so one 
ol the stall" officers tells of his reasoning in those days — and 
with the chances of war in his favor, it needn't be a very great 
while l)eforQ he might hope to be a major! With such modest 
aspirations he worked away at the wagon-trains ; cut down 
regimental transportation, gave fewer wagons for camp furni- 
ture and more for hard bread and fixed ammunition, established 
secondary depots for supplies, and with all his labor found that 
he had not fully estimated the wants of the army. Some 
orders from General Curtis about this time seemed to him 
inconsistent with the West Point system of managing quarter- 
masters' matters, and he said so, of&cially, with considerable 
freedom of utterance. The matter was passed over for a few 
days, but as soon as Pea Ridge was fought. General Curtis 
found time to attend to smaller affairs. The first was to 
dispense with the further services of his quartermaster, and 
send him back to St. Louis in arrest. 

But, just then, educated officers were too rare in Missouri to be 
kept long out of service on punctilios. Presently the affair 
with Curtis was adjusted, and then the Government had some 
fresh work for this young man of routine and business. It 
sent him over into Wisconsin to buy horses! The weeping 
philosopher himself might have been embarrassed to refrain 
from laughter! McClellan was at the head of the army; 
Halleck had chief command in the west ; men like McClernand 
and Banks, Crittenden and McCook, were commanding divisions 
or corps ; and for Cavalry Sheridan the best work the Govern- 



126 MEN" OP OUR DAY. 

ment could find was — buying horses in Wisconsin! Then 
came Pittsburg Landing, and Ilalleck's hurried departure 
for the field. Wishing a body of instructed regular officers 
about him, he thought, among others, oi Curtis's old quarter- 
master, and ordered liini up to the army before Corinth. Then 
followed a little staff service, and at last, in ^lay, 1862, tho 
future head of the cavalry got started on his proper career. 
"Watching wagon-trains, disputing with the la Avyers about doubt- 
ful contractor's claims, or with the jockeys about the worth 
of horses — all this seems now very unworth}^ of Sheridan, but 
it was a part of his education for the place he v.-as to fill ; 
and we shall see that the familiarity thus acquired with the 
details of supplying an army were to prove of service to one 
whose business was to be to command armies, and to tax the 
energies of those who supplied them to tho utmost. 

There was need ^f a good cavalry force, and chiefly of good 
cavalry officers, men who understood their duties and could 
train a cavalry force to act with precision as well as dash, anil 
not to fire once and run away. Our young Indian fighter was 
thought of; he had done good service in Oregon, and indeed 
everywhere else, and it was possible that he might know how 
to handle caivalry. So, at a venture, on the 27th, of May, he 
was commissioned colonel of the second regiment of Michigi-i 
volunteer cavalry,' and sent immediately on the expedition to 
cut the railroad south of Corinth. This accomplished, on his 
return he was immediately sent in pursuit of the rebels, who 
were retreating from Corinth, and captured and brought off the 
guns of Powell's rebel battery. On the 6th of June, leading a 
cavalry reconnoissance below Boonesville, he met and signally 
defeated a body of rebgl cavaliy commanded by General For- 
rest ; and on the 8th, started in pursuit of the enemy, drove 
them through Baldwin and to Guutowu, where, though their 



MAJOIi-CrEXEUAL PHILIP H. SIIEPJDAN. 127 

force was much larger than his own, ho defeated tliern. but 
under orders from head(j[uarters fell back to Boonesville and 
tueneo to Corinth. 

Oil the 11th, of June he was pat in command of a cavalry 
brigade, and on the 2Gth, ordered to take his position at Boone- 
ville, twenty miles in advance of the main army, whose front ho 
uas to cover while at the same time he watched the operations 
of the rebels. His brigade numbered less than two thousand 
men. 

On the 1st of July 1SG2, he was attacked at Booneville by a 
rebel force of nine regiments (about six thousand men), under 
command of General Chalmers. Sheridan slowly retreated 
towaril liis cam}>, which was situated on the edge of a swamp, 
in an advantageous position, where he could not bo flanked, and 
hero he kept up the unequal fight, but finding that Chalmers, 
with his greatly superior numbers, would in the end surround 
and overpower him, he had recourse to strategy. Selecting 
ninety of his best men, armed with revolving carbines and 
sabres, he sent them around to the rear of the enemy by a 
ddour of about four miles, with orders to attack promptly and 
vigorously at a certain time, while he would make a simultane- 
ous charge in front. The plan proved a complete success. The 
ninet}^ men appeared suddenly in the enemy's rear, not having 
been seen till they were near enough to fire their carbines, and, 
having emptied these, they rushed with draAvn sabres upon the 
eneni}-, who, supposing them to be the advance guard of a large 
force, were thrown into disorder ; and, before they had time to 
recover, Sheridan charged them in front with such fury that 
the}- fled from the field in complete disorder, utterly routed. 
Sheridan pursued, and they continued their fliglit, utterly panic- 
stricken, to Knight's mills, twenty miles south from Boone- 



128 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

ville, throwing away tlieir arms, knapsacks, coats, and every 
thing wliich could impede their flight. 

General Grant reported this brilliant affair to the War De- 
partment, with a recommendation that Colonel Sheridan should 
be promoted. This recommendation was granted, and his com- 
mission of brigadier-general bore date July 1, 1862. 

At this time, the rebels in his front had but one stream 
(Twenty Mile creek) from which to water their live-stock, and 
from his post at Booneville, General Sheridan frequently made 
sudden dashes in that direction,- and captured large quantities 
of their stock, often two or three hundred at a time. In August, 
1862, he was attacked by a rebel cavalry force, under Colonel 
Faulkner, near Eienzi, Mississippi, but after a sharp engage- 
ment the rebels were defeated, and retreated in haste, Sheridan 
pursuing them to near Eipley, and, charging upon them before 
they could reach their main column, dispersed the whole force, 
and captured a large number of prisoners. Early in Septem- 
TDcr, 1862, General Grant having ascertained that the rebel Gen- 
eral Bragg was moving towards Kentucky, detached a portion 
of his own forces to reinforce the Army of the Ohio, then under 
command of General Buell. Among these were General Sheri- 
dan, and his old command, the second Michigan cavalry. As 
General Grant expected. General Buell gave Sheridan a larger 
command, assigning him to the charge of the third division of 
the Army of the Ohio. He assumed command of this division 
on the 20th of September, 1862. At this time. General Bragg 
was approaching Louisville, which was not in a good condition 
for defence, and General Sheridan was charged with the duty of 
defending it. In a single night, with the division under his 
command, he constructed a strong line of rifle-pits from the rail- 
road depot to the vicinity of Portland, and thus secured the city 
against the danger of surprise. On the 25th of September, 



MAJOR-GEXEKAT. PHILIP II, SHERIDAN. 129 

General Buell arrived at Louisville, and soon commenced a re- 
organization of tlae Army of tlie Oliio, now largely reinforced. 
In this re-organization, General Sheridan was placed in command 
of the eleventh division, and entered upon his duties on the 1st 
of October. 

Buell soon took the offensive again, and began pushing the re- 
bels, who had already commenced a retreat, but were embarrassed 
by the amount of plunder they had collected. On the 8th of Octo- 
ber, the rebels made a stand near Perryville, Kentucky, for the 
double purpose of checking the pursuit, and allowing their trains 
to move forward out of harm's way. The battle which followed, 
though a severe one, was not decisive, owing to some defects in 
the handling of the forces, and Bragg was allowed to make good 
his retreat with most of his plunder, and with but moderate 
loss : but in it Sheridan played a distinguished part, holding 
the key of the Union position, and resisting the onsets of the 
euem}-, again and again, with great bravery and skill, driving 
them at last from the open ground in front, by a bayonet charge. 
This accomplished, he saw that they were gaining advantage on 
the left of the Union line, and moving forward his artillery, 
directed so terrible a fire upon the rebel advance, that he drove 
them from the open ground on which they had taken position. 
Enraged at being thus foiled, they charged with great fury upon 
his lines, determined to carry the point at all hazards ; but, with 
the utmost coolness, he opened upon them at short range, with 
such a murderous fire of grape and canister, that they fell back 
in great disorder, leaving their dead and wounded in winrows 
in front of the batteries. The loss in Sheridan's division in 
killed and wounded, was over four hundred, but his generalship 
had saved the Union army from defeat. On the 30th of Octo- 
ber, General Eosecrans succeeded General Buell as commander 

of the Arni}^ of the Ohio, which, with enlarged territory, was 
9 



130 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

thenceforward to be known as tlie Army of the Cumberland, 
and in the re-organization, General Sheridan was assigned to 
to the command of one of the divisions of McCook's corps, 
which constituted the right wing of that army. He remained 
for the next seven or eight weeks in the vicinity of Nashville, 
and then moved with his corps, on the 26th of December, 1862, 
toward Murfreesboro. During the 26th, his division met the 
enemy on the Nolensville road, and skirmished with them to 
Nolensville and Knob gap, occupying at night the latter import- 
ant position. The next morning a dense fog obscured the hori- 
zon ; but as soon as it lifted, Sheridan pressed forward, and 
drove the enemy from the village of Triune, which he occupied. 

The next three days were spent in skirmishing, and in gra- 
dually drawing nearer, over the almost impassable roads, to 
Murfreesboro, the goal of their hopes. At length, on the 
night of the oOth of December, the army was drawn up in 
battle arra}^, on the banks of Stone river. 

" The men bivouacked in line of battle. They were to wake 
to great calamity and great glory in the morning. 

" In the general plan of the battle of Stone river, the part 
assigned to the right wing, was to hold the enemy, while the 
rest of the army swung through Murfreesboro, upon his rear. 
In this right wing Sheridan held the left. Elsewhere along that 
ill-formed line were batteries, to which the horses had not been 
harnessed when the fateful attack burst through the gray davvn 
upon them. But there Avas one division commander who, with 
or without orders thereto, might be trusted for ample vigilance 
in the face of an enemy. At two in the morning, he w^as 
moving some of his regiments to strengthen a portion of his 
line, on wliich he thought the enemy was massing. At four he 
mustered his division under arms, and had every cannoneer at 
his post. For over two hours they waited. When the onset 



MAJOR-GENERAL PHILIP H. SHERIDAN". 181 

came, tlic ready batteries opened at once. Tlie rebels coihinued 
to sweep up. At fifty yards' distance the volleys of Sheridan's 
musketry became too murderous. The enemy, in massed regi- 
ments, hesitated, wavered, and finally broke. Sheridan instantly 
sent Sill's brigade to charge upon the retreating cohimn. The 
movement was brilliantly executed, but the life of the gallant 
brigade commander went out in the charge. 

"Presently the enemy rallied and returned. Already the 
rest of the wing had been hurled back in confusion ; the weight 
of the victorious foe bore down upon Sheridan's exposed flank 
and broke it. There was now come upon Sheridan, that same 
stress of battle under which his companion division commanders 
had been crushed. But hastily drawing back the broken flank, 
he changed the front of his line to meet the new danger, and 
ordered a brigade to charge ; while under cover of this daring 
onset, the new line was made compact. Here Sheridan felt 
abundantly able to hold his ground. 

" But his flank ? The routed divisions, which should 

have formed upon it, were still in hasty retreat. He dashed 
among them — threatened, begged, swore. All w^as in vain; 
they woxdd not re-form. Sheridan Avas isolated, and his right 
once more turned. Moving then by the left, he rapidly ad- 
vanced, driving the enemy from his front, and maintaining his 
line unbroken till he secured a connection on the left with 
Negley. Here he was instantly and tremendously assailed. 
The attack was repulsed. Again Cheatham's rebel division at 
tacked, and again it was driven back. Once again the baffled 
enemy swept up to the onset, till his batteries were planted 
within two hundred yards of Sheridan's lines. The men stood 
firm. Another of the brigade commanders fell ; but the enemy 
was once more driven. Thus heroically did Sheridan strive to 
beat back the swift disaster that had befallen the risht 



132 ilEX OF OUR DAY. 

''But uow came tlie crowning niisfortu _e. Wlieu tlie rest of 
McCook's wing bad been swept out of the contest, the ammuui- 
tiou train had fallen into the hands of the enemy. ^Vith the 
overwhelming force on his front, with the batteries playing at 
short range, with the third rebel onslaught just repulsed, and 
the men momentarily growing more confident of themselves 
and of their fiery commander, there suddenly came the startling 
cry that the ammunition was exhausted ! ' Fix bayonets, then !' 
was the ringing command. Under cover of the bristling lines 
of steel on the front, the brigades were rapidly withdrawn. 
Presently a couple of regiments fell upon uu abandoned ammu- 
nition wagon. For a moment they swarmed around it — then 
back on the double quick to the front, to aid in the retreat of 
the artillery. One battery was lost, the rest, with only a miss- 
ing piece or two, were brought ofl". Thus riddled and depleted, 
with fifteen hundred from the little division left dead or wound- 
ed in the dark cedars, but with compact ranks and a steady 
front, the heroic column came out on the Murfreesboro turn- 
pike. ' Here is all that is left of us,' said Sheridan, riding up 
to Rosecrans to report. 'Our cartridge-boxes are empty, and 
so are our muskets !' 

"Thus the right, on which the battle was to have hinged, 
had disappeared from the struggle. Already the enemy, press- 
ing his advantage to the utmost, seemed about to break through 
the centre ; and Sheridan, supplied with ammunition, was or- 
dered in to its relief. He checked the rebel advance, charged at 
one })oint, and captured guns and prisoners, held his line .-teady 
throughout, and bivouacked upon it at nightfall. This final 
struggle cost him his last brigade commander !"" 

General Eosecrans, in his report of this battle, pays the fol- 
lowing high compliment to Sheridan's generalship: "Sheridan, 

* Mr. Whitelaw Keid's sketch of Sheridan in his " Ohio in the War." 



MA.TOR-GEXEEAL rili: iP H. SHERIDAN. 133 

after sustaining /ot/r successive attacks^ gradually swung his right 
round southeasterly to a northwestern direction, repulsing the 
enemy four times^\o^\\v^ the gallant General Sill of his right, 
and Colonel Roberts of his left brigade; Avlicn, having ex 
hausted his ammunition, Negley's division being in the same 
predicament, and heavily pressed, after desperate fighting they 
fell back from the position held at the commencement, through 
the cedar woods, in which Rousseau's division, with a portion 
of ISTegley's and Sheridan's, met the advancing enemy and 
checked his movements." 

For his gallantry in this battle. General Rosecrans suggested, 
and the President recommended, Sheridan's promotion to the 
rank of major-general of volunteers, his commission to date 
from December olst, 1862. He was at once coniirmed by the 
Senate. 

In the months that followed the battle of Stone river, months 
of watching and waiting, Sheridan kept himself busy, and en- 
joying the confidence of the commanding general, who did not, 
however, fully appreciate his talents^ he and his division found 
constant employment. The country about Murfreesboro was 
thoroughly scoured, and all its strategic points carefully ma})ped 
in the mind of the cavalry general. On the 8d of march, he 
flung himself and his division upon the rebel General Van Dorn, 
who had penetrated as far as Shelbyville, Tennessee, m an ad- 
vance upon the Union lines, hurled him back, pursued him to 
Columbia and Franklin, and near Eagleville, Tennessee, cap- 
tured his train and a large number of prisoners. In the ad- 
vance on Tullahoma, June 24 to July 4, 1868, he drove the 
rebels out of Liberty Gap, a strong mountain pass, which was 
one of the keys of their position, occupied Shelbyville, pushed 
forward to, and took possession of Winchester, Tennessee, 
which by a flank, movement, he had compelled the enemy to 



134: MEN OF OUR DAY. 

abandon, and saved the great bridge over the Tennessee at 
Bridgeport, his infantry outstripping Stanley's cavalry, which 
they were ordered to support. 

The Tennessee crossed, Chattanooga flanked by Rosecrans, and 
evacuated by Bragg, General Sheridan -was sent to reconnoitre 
the enemy's force and position, and found him largely reinforced 
and determined to push Eosecrans to the wall and recover 
Chattanooga. Then came Chickamauga, the severe but wholly 
indecisive battle of the first day, in which, however, Sheridan, 
by his promptness and activity, did good service, and the disas- 
trous fight of the second day, which yet, thanks to General 
Thomas's firmness and superb generalship, was not wholly a 
defeat. In this severe action, McCook's and Crittenden's corps 
and the general commanding the army were, by the fatal mis- 
understanding of an order, cut ofi" from the remainder of the 
army, and compelled to fall back upon Rossville, and Chatta- 
nooga. Sheridan, whose division was still a part of McCook's 
coips, though involved in this disaster, succeeded, by the utmost 
effort, in rallying the greater part of his command and bringing 
it through by-roads from Rossville to join General Thomas, 
wiio had fought and repulsed the enemy. lie was not in season, 
much to his mortification, to participate in the closing hours of 
the fight, but he nevertheless strengthened materially the hands 
of the general. 

The corps of McCook and Crittenden were now consolidated 
into one (the fourth) corps, and the command of it given to 
Gordon Granger, an officer only less incompetent than those 
whom he succeeded. Then came a change of commanders to the 
Army of the Cumberland ; General G. H, Thomas succeeded 
General Rosecrans, and the army of the Tennessee, and two 
corps from the Army of the Potomac, being added to the force, 
General Grant to'";k charge of the whole. The battles of the 



MAJOR-GENERAL PHILIP H. SHERIDAN. 135 

Waubatcbic, Lookout Mouiitaiu, and Mission Eidgc, and tbe 
expulsion of tbe rebels from tbe valleys of Cbattanooga and 
Chickamauga followed. In tbe capture of Orcbard Knob, and 
in tbat mcst brilliant episode of tbe Avar, tbe ascent of Mission 
Eidge, Sberidan bore a conspicuous part. Tbe fourtb corps 
(Granger's) were tbe cbargiug column, and stung by tbe 
recollection of tbat sad day at Cbickamauga, as tbe six guns 
gave tbe signal for advance, Sberidan rode along bis column, 
and called in tbundcr tones to bis division, " Sbow tbe fourth 
corps tbat tbe men of tbe old twentietb are still alive, and can 
figbt. Eemember Cbickamauga !" 

Before Sberidan and tbe companion divisions stretcbed an 
open space of a mile and an eigbtb to tbe enemy's first line of 
rifle-pits. Above tbis frowned a steep ascent of five bundred 
yards, up which it scarcely seemed possible tbat unresisted troops 
could clamber. At tbe summit were fresh rifle-pits. As 
Sberidan rode along bis front and reconnoitered the rebel pits 
at the base of tbe ridge, it seemed to him tbat, even if captured, 
they could scarcely be tenable under tbe plunging fire tbat 
might then be directed from tbe summit. He accordingly sent 
back a staflf-officer to inquire if tbe order was to take the rifle- 
pits or to take tbe ridge. But before there was time for an 
answer, the six guns thundered out their stormy signal, and the 
whole line rose up and leaped forward. Tbe plain was swept 
by a tornado of shot and shell, but the men rushed on at the 
double-quick, swarmed over tbe rifle-pits, and flung themselves 
down on the face of the mountain. Just then the answer to 
Sbeiidan's message came. It was only tbis first line of rifle- 
pit3 ihat was to be carried. Some of tbe men were accordingly 
retired to it by their brigade commander, under tbe heavy fire 
of grape, canister, and mu.-ketry. "But," said Sberidan, 
*' believincj that tbe attack bad assumed a new phase, and that I 



136 MEN OF OUR DAT. 

could carry the ridge, I could uot order those officers aid meD 
who were so gallantly ascending the hill, step by step, to return.' 
As the twelve regimental colors slowly went up, one advancing 
a little, the rest pushing forward, emulous to be even with it, 
till all were planted midway up the ascent on a partial line of 
rifle-pits that nearly covered Sheridan's front, an order came 
from (jranger : "If in your judgment the ridge can be taken, 
do so." An eye-witness shall tell us how he received it.* 
" An aid rides up with the order ; ' Avery, that flask,' said the 
general. Quietl}^ filling the pewter cup, Sheridan looks up at 
the batter}' that frowned above him, by Bragg's headquarters, 
■shakes his cap amid that storm of every thing that kills, where 
you could hardly hold your hand without catching a bullet in 
it, and, with a 'How are you?' tosses off the cup. The blue 
battle-flag of the rebels fluttered a response to the cool salute, 
and the next instant the battery let fl}' its six guns, showering 
Sheridan with earth. The general said in his quiet way, ' I 

thought it d d ungenerous !' The recording angel will drop a 

tear upon the word for the part he played that day. Wheeling 
toward the men he cheered them to the charge, and made at the 
hill like a bold-riding hunter. They were out of the rifle-pits 
and into the tempest, and struggling up the steep before you 
could get breath to tell it." 

Then came what the same writer has called the torrid zone 
of the battle. Eocks were rolled down from above on the 
advancing line ; shells with lighted fuses were rolled down ; 
guns were loaded with liandfuls of cartridges and fired down, 
but the line struggled on : still fluttered the twelve regimental 
flags in the advance. At last, Avith a leap and a rush, over 
they went — all twelve fluttered on the crest — the rebels were 

* 13. F. Taylor, of the Chicago Journal. 



MAJOR-GENERAL PHILIP H. SHERIDAN. 137 

bayoneted out of their rifle-pits — the guns were turned — the 
ridge was won. In this last spasm of the struggle Sheridan's 
horse was shot under him. He sprang upon a captured gun, to 
raise his short person high enough to be visible in the half- 
crazy throng, and ordered a pursuit ! It liarassed the enemy 
for some miles, and brought back eleven guns as proofs of its 
vigor. 

Signal as had been Sheridan's previous services, he had 
never before been so brilliantly conspicuous. In other battles 
he had approved himself a good officer in the eyes of his superi- 
ors ; on the deathly front of Mission Ridge he flamed out the 
incarnation of soldierly valor and vigor in the eyes of the whole 
American people. His entire losses were thirteen hundred and 
four, and he took seventeen hundred and sixty-two prisoners. 
But these figures give no adequate idea of the conflict. It may 
be better understood from the simple statement that in that 
brief contest, in a part of a winter afternoon, he lost one hun 
dred and twenty-three officers from that single division — a nuni' 
ber greater than the whole French army lost at Solferino ! 
Through his own clothes five minie balls had passed ; his horse 
had been shot under him ; and yet he had come out without a 
scratch. 

For a short time longer he was employed in East Tennessee 
in driving out the rebels who still found a lodgment there, but 
when General Grant was advanced to the lieutenant general- 
'^hip, one of his first acts was to appl}'- to the War Department 
for the transfer of General Philip H. Sheridan to the eastern 
army, and when he was arrived, to make him the commander 
of the cavalry corps of the Army of the Potomac. Here he 
was in the sphere for which he had longed, and for which he 
was undoubtedly best fitted. But the cavalry of the Anny of 
the Potomac was far from being in a model condition The 



138 MEN OF OUR PAT. 

days of the old service of cavalry, the heavy and light horse, the 
grand cavalry charges, and the chivalry of mounted troops 
under perfect drill "were gone ; minie muskets and rilled cannon 
had changed all that. But with this 'there had gone also iu 
great measure the esprit du co^ys of the service. The squadrons 
were detailed for picket service, for guarding trains, for duties 
which could better be performed by infantry, and when they 
fought, they charged upon infantry, and were shy of any attack 
upon the enemy's cavalry. Against all this Sheridan protested, 
and with good effect. lie procured their release from picket 
and train duty, he trained his men to care tenderly for their 
horses, which up to this time had been broken down with 
frightful rapidity, in consequence of the ignoiance, heedlessness 
and indifference of their riders ; he drilled them in all the ser- 
vice of cavalry and infused into them a portion of his own fiery 
spirit and that joy iu the fight, which marks the true cavalry 
soldier. 

From the 5th of May, 1864, to the 9th of April, 1865, Sheri- 
dan's command were engaged in seventy-six distinct battles, 
all but thirteen of them under his own eye and order. At the 
close of tlie campaign he could say, with a commendable pride 
iu the achievements of his men, though always modest in regard 
to his own deeds, " We sent to the War Department (between 
the dates above specified) two hundred and five battle flags, 
captured in open field fighting — nearly as many as all the 
armies of the United States combined sent there during the 
rebellion. The number of field pieces captured in the same 
period was between one hundred and sixty and one hundred 
and seventy, all iu open field fighting.* * -"We led the advance 
of the armj to the "Wilderness ; on the Richmond raid we 
marked out its line of march to the North Anna, where we 
found it on our return : we asfaiu led its advance to Hanover- 



MAJOR-GENERAL PHILIP IL SHERIDAN. 139 

town, and then to Cold Ilarbor; we removed the eneniy'd 
cavahy from the south side of the Chickahoniiny by the Tre 
villian raid, and thereby aiaterially assisted tlie army in its 
successfal march to the J..mes river and Petersburg, where it 
remained until we made the campaign in the valley ; we 
marched back to Petersburg, again took the advance and led 
the army to victory. In all these operafions, the percentage of 
cavalry casualties was as great as that of the infantry, and the 
question which had existed — ' who ever saw a dead cavalry- 
man V was set at rest." 

Of the many remarkable actions hinted at in these pregnant 
sentences, we have space only to allude to two or three. His 
first raid toward Kichmond was one of the most daring and 
successful of the war. He penetrated the outer line of defences 
of that city; bewildered and confounded the rebels by his au- 
dacity, fought two battles to extricate himself from his apparent- 
ly critical position, in one of which General J. B. B. Stuart, the 
ablest cavalry ofl&cer of the rebels, was slain ; defeated the 
enemy in both battles, built a bridge across the Chickahominy 
under fire, and finally returned to the Army of the Potomac 
after sixteen days with but slight loss, after inflicting serious 
and permanent inj ury upon the enemy. His second raid, under- 
taken to co-operate with Hunter in the valley of Virginia was 
less successful, owing to the utter failure of that officer's plans, 
but it kept the rebel cavalry out of the way of the Union army 
in crossing the James. On his return, he guarded the vast train 
of the Army of the Potomac (an irksome task to him), to and 
across the James, not without some sharp battles; made some 
raids south of the James, and took an active part in the feint 
at the north side of the James, in the last days ©f July. Appoint- 
ed to the command of the Arm}' of the Shenandoah, in August, 
he exhibited such ability in han iling his troops, such alternate 



140 MEN" OF OUR DAY. 

caution and daring in his manceuvring Avitli Early, that the 
confidence of the nation ^vas soon reposed in him. That that 
confidence was not misplaced, he speedily gave decisive evidence 

On the 19th of September, after a fierce and stubborn fight at 
Opequan creek, he had defeated and routed Early, and as he 
expressed it, " sent him whirling through Winchester," follow- 
ing him relentlessly to*his defences at Fisher's Hill, thirty miles 
below, killing in the battle and retreat, three, and wounding 
severely four more of his ablest generals, among the latter 
Fitzhugh Lee, the commander of the rebel cavalry of the army 
of Virginia. With his usual celerity, and a strategic skill of 
which, hitherto, he had not displayed the possession, he proceed- 
ed to attack Early's stronghold, Fisher's Hill, which that general 
had believed perfectly impregnable, and, on the 22d, carried it 
by storm, attacking in front, in rear, and on the flank ; drove 
the rebels out and chased them without mercy till the 25th, 
driving them below Port Eepublic, at the extreme head of the 
valley. 

For this splendid series of victories, he was made a brigadier- 
general in the regular army in place of the lamented McPher- 
son. Twice more before the 13th of October he had driven 
back Early or his lieutenants, who, loth to give up the valley 
of the Shenandoah, the garden of Virginia, had obtained rein- 
forcements and again essayed encounters with this western 
rough rider. At length, believing Early sufficiently punished 
to remain in obscurity for a time, Sheridan made a flying visit 
to Washington, on matters connected with his department. 
Early was quickly apprised of his departure, and resolved to 
profit by it. Collecting further reinforcements, and creeping 
stealthily up to the camp of the Union army at Cedar creek, 
eighteen or twenty rniles below Winchester, the rebel soldiers 
being required to lay aside their canteens, lest the click of their 



MAJOR-GENERAL rillLIP n. SHERIDAN. 1-il 

bayo.iets against them slionld apprize tlie Union troops of 
tlieir approach, they reached and flanked Crooks' corps, which 
was in advance, at about day dawn. The Union troops were 
un})ardonably careless, having no suspicion that the rebels 
were witliiu twenty miles of them. They were consequently 
taken at unawares, and many of them bayonetted before they 
were fairly awake; in a very few minutes they were forced 
back, disorganized, upon the nineteenth corps, who were en echelon 
bevond them ; they at first made a stand, but in a short time 
were forced back, though not completely disorganized ; and the 
sixth corps in turn were compelled to stand against heavy odds. 
In the end all were driven back three or four miles, to the 
Middletown plains, and the fugitives were carrying the news 
of a total defeat and rout, at full speed toward AVinchester 
But deliverance was nearer than they thought. They had lost 
twenty -four guns and twelve hundred prisoners, but they were 
beginning to recover from their fright, and were re-organizing, 
while the rebels, hungry and thirsty, wayworn and in rags, were 
'stopping to plunder tbe camp. Still they would hardly have 
regained any portion of their lost territory and might have fallen 
back to Winchester, had not Sheridan, just at this juncture, 
appeared riding at full speed among them. He had heard the 
firing at Winchester, where he arrived late the night before, 
and at first was not alarmed by it, but, coming out of Winches- 
ter, he was met by some of the foremost of the fugitives, a mile 
from the town. 

" lie instantly gave orders to park the retreating trains on 
either side of the road, directed the greater part of his escort 
to follow as best they could ; then, with only twenty cavalrymen 
accompanying him, he struck out in a swinging gallop for the 
scene of danger. As he dashed up the pike, the crowds of 
stragglers gn w thicker. He reproached none ; only, swinging 



142 MEN' OF OUR DAY. 

his cap, witli a cheery smile for all, he slicuted : ' Face the other 
Avay, bovs, face the other way. We are going back to our 
camps. We are going to lick them out of their boots.' Less 
classic, doubtless, than Napoleon's ' My children, we will camp 
on the battle-field, as usual ;' but the wounded raised their 
hoarse voices to cheer as he passed, and the masses of fugitives 
turned and followed him to the front. As he rode into the 
forming lines, the men quickened their pace back to the ranks, 
and everjMvhere glad cheers went up. ' Boys, this never should 
have happened if I had been here,' he exclaimed to one and 
another regiment. ' I tell you it never should have happened. 
And now Ave are going back to our camps. We are going to 
get a twist on them ; we'll get the tightest twist on them 3-et 
that ever you saw. We'll have all those camps and cannou 
back again !' Thus he rode along the lines, rectified the forma- 
tion, cheered and animated the soldiers. Presently there grew 
up across that pike as compact a body of infantry and cavalry 
as that which, a month before, had sent the enemy 'whirlinL; 
through Winchester.' His men had full faith in ' the twist' he 
was ' going to get' on the victorious foe ; his presence was inspi- 
ration, his commands were victory. 

'* While the line was thus re-established, he was in momentary 
expectation of attack. Wright's sixth corps was some distance 
in the rear. One staff officer after another was sent after it. 
Finally, Sheridan himself dashed down to hurry it up: then 
back to watch it going into position. Ashe thus stood, looking 
oft" from the left, he saw the enemy's columns once more moving 
uy). Hurried warning was sent to the nineteenth corps, on which 
it was evident the attack would fall. By this time it was after 
three o'clock. 

" The nineteenth corps, no longer taken by surprise, repulsed 
thp enemy's onset. ' Thank God for that,' said Sheridan, gaily. 



MAJOll-GEXERAL PHILIP H. SHERIDAN. 143 

•' Now tell General Emory, if they attack him agaiu. to go after 
tlicm, and to follow them up. We'll get the tightest twist on 
them pretty soon they ever saw.' The men heard and believed 
him ; the demoralization of the defeat was gone. But he still 
waited. Word liad been sent in from the cavalry, of danger 
from a heavy body moving on his flank. He doubted it, and 
at last determined to run the risk. At four o'clock the orders 
went out: ' The whole line will advance. The nineteenth corps 
will move in connection with the sixth. The right of the nine- 
teenth will swing toward the left.' 

" The enemy lay behind stone fences, and where these failed, 
breastworks of rails eked out his line. For a little, he held his 
position firmly. His left overlapped Sheridan's right, and see- 
ing this advantage, he bent it down to renew the attack in 
flank. At this critical moment, Sheridan ordered a charge of 
General ]\[cWilliams' brigade against the angle thus caused in 
the rebel line. It forced its way through, and the rebel flank- 
ing party was cut off. Custer's cavalry was sent swooping down 
upon it — it broke, and fled, or surrendered, according to the 
agility of the individuals. Simultaneously the Avhole line 
charged along the front ; the rebel line was crowded back to 
the creek ; the difficulties of the crossing embarrassed it, and 
as the victorious ranks swept up, it broke in utter confusion. 

" Custer charged down in the fast gathering darkness, to the 
west of the pike ; Devin to the east of it ; and on either flank 
of the fleeing rout they flung themselves. Nearly all the rebel 
transportation was captured, the camps and artillery Avere re- 
gained ; up to Fisher's Ilill the road was jammed with artillery, 
caissons, and ambulances; prisoners came streaming back faster 
than the provost marshal could provide for them. It was the 
end of Early's army ; the end of campaigning in the beautiful 
valley of the Shenandoah." 



144 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

The twenty-four cannon lost in the morning were retaken, 
and besides them, twenty-eight more of Early's. Beside these, 
there were fifty wagons, sixty-five ambulances, sixteen hundred 
small arms, several battle flags, fifteen hundred prisoners, and 
two thousand killed and wounded left on the field. Tlie Union 
losses were about thirty-eight hundred, of whom eight hundred 
were prisoners. 

In all the records of modern history, there are but three ex- 
amples of such a battle, lost and won on the same field, and in 
the same conflict — Marengo, Shiloh, and Stone River ; and in 
the two former the retrieval was due nudnly to ixnnforcements 
brought up at the critical time, while the third was not so 
immedia ely decisive ; but here, the only reinforcement which 
the army of the Shenandoah received or needed to recover its 
lost field of battle, camps, intrenchments, and cannon, was one 
man — Sheridax, 

General Grant, on the receipt of the news of the battle, tele- 
graphed to Secretary Stanton: "I had a salute of one hundred 
guns fired from each of the armies here, in honor of Sheridan's 
last victory. Turning what bid fair to be a disaster into a glori- 
ous victory, stamps Slieridan, ivliat I have ahvays ilwugJd him, ont 
of the ahlcsL of generals^ General Sheridan also received an 
autograph letter of thanks from the President, and on the 14th 
of November, he was promoted to the major- generalship in the 
regular' army, vacated by General McClellan's resignation. 

For six weeks following, there were occasional .-kirmishes 
with small bands of regular cavalry, the dthns of Early's army, 
but this wa.s all. In December, the sixth army corps returned 
to the Army of the Potomac, and Shcj'idan, for two months, 
recruited and rested his cavalry, using it only as an army of 
observation. About the first of March, Avith a force of about 
y,000 me 3, well mounted and disciplined, he m ,.ved forward 



MAJOIi-GENEIiAL PHILIP II. SHERIDAN. 145 

under instructions from General Grant, to destroy the Virginia 
Central railroad, and the James River canal, the two arteries of 
supply for the rebels at Richmond and Petersburg, and then 
strike at, and if possible, capture Lynchburg, and cither join 
Sherman at Goldsboro, or returning to Winchester, descend 
thence to City Point. The destruction of the railroad and canal 
were thoroughly performed, but, delayed by heavy rains, he 
found that Lynchburg was probably too strong to be attacked, 
and as every route of communication between that city and 
Richmond was broken, its garrison could not render any assist- 
ance either to Lee or Johnston. He had captured Early's 
remaining force of 1,600 men at Waynesboro ; and now, instead 
of returning to Winchester, or going on to join Sherman, he 
resolved to march past Richmond, to join the Army of the Poto- 
mac. The resolve was a bold one, for he knew Longstreet was 
on the Avatch for him, and would show him no mercy, if he 
could have a fair opportunity of attacking him. Nevertheless, 
he made the march, fooled Longstreet, and arrived safely at 
City Point, having completely desolated the country through 
which he })assed, and destroyed property, estimated by the 
rebels themselves, at over $50,000,000. 

And now came the end of the war, and in its closing scenes, 
so for as the rebel army of Northern Virginia was concerned, 
Sheridan luid the most conspicuous part. Arriving at City 
Point CL the 25th of March, 1865, he was directed by General 
Grant to move, on the 29th, southwestward by way of Reams' 
station to Diuwiddie Court-house, and from thence either strike 
the Southside railroad at Burkesville station, some forty miles 
distant ; or, if it should seem best, support the infantry, one or 
two corps of which should, in that case, be put under his com- 
mand, in an attempt, by way of Halifax road, to cross Hatcher's 

run at ihe point which had been held since February. He 
10 



140 MEN' OF OUR DAY. 

chose, after reconuoissance, the latter plan, and pushed on toward 
Dinwiddle, and connected with the left of the fifth corps, on the 
Boydton road. The enemy were found strongly intrenched at 
Five F;:rks, about six miles west of the Boydton plank-road, 
and also held in some force the White Oak road, by which the 
Five Forks were approached from the east. On the 3 1st of 
March there was heavy fighting all along the line. The fifth 
corps, or rather two divisions of it, were driven back in some 
disorder on the White Oak road, and a part of Sheridan's cav- 
alry wci'c separated from the main body, and his whole force 
imperilled. By dismounting his cavalry in front of Dinwiddle 
CoLirt-house, and fighting desperately till late at night, he suc- 
ceeded in holding his position, and the two contending forces 
lay on their arms through the night. The next morning, April 
1st, the fifth corps, now under his command, did not advance as 
he expected, and his enemy of the night before having retreated 
to Five Forks, he followed, and finding the fifth corps, directed 
them to assault when he gave the order, and completed his 
arrangements for carrying Five Forks by a simultaneous assault 
in front and on both flanks. In this assault the fifth corps par- 
ticipated. It was successful, after some hard fighting, and the 
rebel troops who were not either slain, wounded or prisoners, 
were driven off westward so far as to be unable to return to aid 
in the defence of Petersburg. Being dissatisfied, perhaps with- 
out quite sufficient cause, with the management of General G. 
K; Warren, the commander of the fifth corps, during the day. 
General Sheridan relieved him of his command, and ordered 
General Griffin to take his place. The two men were so unlike 
in their temperament and modes of thought, though both brave 
and patriotic officers, that they could hardly have been expected 
to work well together. 



MAJOR-GENERAL PHILIP H. SHERIDAN. 147 

Sheridan followed up his successes the following day, by ham- 
mering the enemy's lino along the Southsidc railroad, and an 
assault being made at the same time on the defences of Peters- 
burg, that city and Eichmond were evacuated, and the rebel 
army fled along the route of the Soutliside railroad and the 
Appomattox river toward Appomattox Court-house, pursued 
relentlessly by Sheridan, who acted on the Donnybrook Fair 
principle, and whenever he saw a rebel head, hit it. There w^ere 
some sharp actions, for the rebels were fighting in sheer despair ; 
but finding their trains captured and themselves brought to bay, 
without hope, at Appomattox Court-house, they surrendered, 
and the war in Virginia was over. 

But not yet was our cavalry general to find rest. He was 
ordered at once to Texas, with a large force, to bring the rebels 
there, who still held out, to terms. E. Kirby Smith, the rebel 
commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, surrendered 
about the time of his arrival, and, with his surrender, the war 
closed. On the 27th of June, 1865, General Sheridan was ap- 
pointed commander of the military Division of the Gulf, em- 
bracing the departments of Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and 
Texas. 

To preserve order in this division, so recently in rebellion, was 
a difficult task, the more difficult because the acting President 
was not true to his pledges, but encouraged the rebels, who at 
first were disposed to yield, to raise their heads again in defiance. 
But General Sheridan proved himself the man for the occasion. 
' He was unfortunately absent in Texas when the riot and mas- 
sacre occurred in New Orleans, but his prompt and decided 
action in regard to it, his denunciation of the course of the 
mayor and police, even when he knew that they were in favor 
with the President, his removal of them from of&ce, and with 
them of others who obstructed reconstruction, and the thorousrh 



148 MEN OF OUE DAY. 

loyalty be manifested all the way through, endeared him greatly 
to the nation. In Texas, too, he had his troubles : a disloyal 
governor was placed in power by the abortive reconstruction 
plan of Mr. Johnson, and when Congress armed Sheridan with 
the needed power, he removed him as promptly as he had done 
the rebel mayor and treacherous governor of Louisiana. 

There were border difficulties to encounter, also ; many of the 
rebel ofl&cers had escaped to Mexico, and most of them were in 
Maximilian's service. Like his chief — General Grant — General 
Sheridan's sympathies were wholly with the Juarez or Eepub- 
lican party in Mexico ; but our relations with France were such 
that we could only give them our moral, not our military, sup- 
port. Demagogues of both the Eepublican and Imperial par- 
ties did their best to involve us in the imhroglio in some way, 
and one of Sheridan's subordinate commanders was so unwise 
as to cross the Eio Grande, at Matamoras, on the invitation of 
one of the guerrilla chiefs, and mingle in the fray. For this he 
was promptly removed from command, and General Sheridan 
exhibited so much prudence and discretion in the whole aflfair 
as to receive the approval of all parties. 

That Andrew Johnson should not be pleased with so straight- 
forward and loyal a commander was to be expected ; and not 
withstanding the earnest protest of General Grant, he removed 
him in August, 1867, from the command of the Fifth District, 
and ordered him to command on the plains, where he would 
have only Indians to contend with. Before proceeding to his 
new command, however, Major-General Sheridan, by permission 
of General Grant, visited the East, and was everywhere received 
with ovations and honor by the people, who were duly mindful 
of his great services in war and peace. 

In person, Major-General Sheridan is small, being barely five 
feet six inches in height. His body is stout, his limbs raiher 



MAJOR-GENERAL PHILIP H. SHERIDAN. 149 

short. He appears, however, to good advantage on horseback, 
being an admirable horseman, and always riding a spirited, and 
what most people would think a vicious, horse. His broad, deep 
chest, his compact and firm muscles, his large head, and his 
active, vigorous motions, indicate a man of great vitality and 
endurance, and such he is. Ilis dark eyes are his finest features ; 
but the whole expression of his face indicates intellectual power 
and intensity of will. Ilis voice is usually soft and low, but 
musical ; but on the field, in action, it rings out clear as a silver 
bell. Take him all in all, the country has cause to be proud of 
its cavalry general. 



MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE H. THOMAS. 




AJOR-GENERAL GEORGE H. THOMAS, was born in 
Southampton county, Virginia, on the 81st of July, 1816. 
C^/T) His father, John Thomas, was of English, or more re- 
^ motely of Welsh descent, while his mother, Elizabeth 
Eochelle, was of an ancient Huguenot family; and both, by 
birth, connections and social condition were ranked among the 
" first families" of the Old Dominion. Having received a fair 
academic education, he accepted a deputy -clerkship under his 
uncle, James Rochelle, then county-clerk, and commenced at 
the same time the study of the law. Receiving, in the spring 
of 1836, and through the influence of family friends, an appoint- 
ment to a cadetship in the United States Military Academy at 
West Point, he entered as a cadet in the following June ; and, 
after four years of study, graduated in June, 18-10 — twelfth in 
a class which numbered forty-two members. He was assigned 
to a second lieutenancy in the 3d artillery, joined his regiment 
in Florida in November, and after a year's participation in the 
duties and dangers of that service, was breveted (Nov. 6, 1841) 
first lieutenant, "for gallant conduct." In January, 1842, he 
accompanied his regiment to New Orleans, and, in June follow- 
ing, to Fort Moultrie, Charleston harbor. In December, 1843, 

he was ordered with company C, of his regiment, to Fort 
150 



MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE H. THOMAS. 151 

;N[cITciiry, MaryLmd; wms promoted first lieutenant, April oOtli, 
IS-ii, and in the spring of 1845 joined company E, at Fort 
]\[oultrie. In July, 1845, Lieutenant Thomas and his company 
reported to General Zachary Taylor at Corpus Christi ; being, 
together with the 3d and -ith infantry, the first United States 
troops who occupied the soil of Texas — in anticipation of 
threatened difficulty with ISIexico. Marching with the army 
of occupation from Corpus Christi to the Eio Grande, Lieu- 
tenant Thomas's company, together with detachments from the 
1st artillery and 7th infantry, was left to garrison Fort BroAvn 
opposite Matamoras — the main body of the army, under General 
Taylor, being at Point Lsabel, where their base of supplies was 
established. He thus participated in the successful defence of 
Fort Brown, against the Mexicans, from the 2d to the 9th of 
May ; and had the pleasure of contributing to the decisive vic- 
tory obtained by Taylor at Resaca de la Palma on the 9th, by 
pouring in an unremitting and galling fire upon the demoralized 
masses who sought safety in flight over the Rio Grande, near 
the fort. After the evacuation of Matamoras, Lieut.i^nant 
Thomas, with a section of his battery, was on detached service 
with the advance of the army; rejoined his command in Septem- 
ber, and took part in the battle of Monterey, September 23d, 
1846, where, for his gallantry, he Avas breveted captain. From 
the 1st of November, 1846, until February 14th, 1847, he com- 
manded company E as senior lieutenant, during which time he 
was with the advance of General Quitman's brigade. Compa- 
nies C and E of the 3d artillery were among those selected 
by General Taylor in the formation of a division, with which, 
in accordance with General Scott's orders, he occupied the 
country which he had conquered. In the glorious and decisive 
battle of Buena Yista, on the 21st of February, Thomas ex- 
hibited distinguished gallantry, which won for him the warmesi 



152 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

encomiums of his chief, and the brevet rank of major. At the 
close of the Mexican war he was appointed to the charge of 
the coraniisriary depot at Brazos Santiago, and in December, 
1848, received a six months, leave of absence, the first he had 
enjoyed since entering the service. Rejoining his company in 
June, 1849, at Fort Adams, Newport, Bhode Island, he was 
ordered on the 31st of July to take command of company B, of 
the 3d artillery, and proceed to Florida, where he remained 
until December, 1850. From thence he was ordered to Fort 
Independence, Boston harbor ; but, on the 28th of March, 1851, 
was relieved by Captain Ord, and assigned to West Point as 
instructor of artillery and cavalry, in Avhich capacity he served 
for three years, during which time he was promoted to a full cap- 
taincy, dating from December 2-ith, 1853. lie was next as- 
signed, with a battalion of artillery, to Fort Yuma, Lower 
California, the command of which he assumed July 15, 1854. 
Appointed, May 12, 1855, as junior major of the 2d United 
States cavalry, he left Fort Yuma in July, 1855, to join his 
new regiment at Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis, Missouri : and, 
from May 1st 1856, to November 1st, 1860, was on duty in 
Texas During three years of this time he commanded the regi- 
ment, and in the summer of 1860, was engaged in an important 
exploration of the head waters of the Canadian and Red rivers 
and the Conchas, during which he met and skirmished with 
roving bands of hostile Indians, and in one of these rencontres, 
August 26th, 1860, was slightly wounded in the face. In 
November, 1860, he was favored with a short leave of absence — 
and when he returned to duty, the country was on the eve of a 
stupendous struggle, in which Providence had marked him as 
a prominent actor. 

"When the rebellion broke out in April, 1861, Major Thomas 
was one of the few southerners wlio maintained their allegiance 



MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE H. THOMAS, ^r>H 

to the " Old Flag," and was ordered to Carlisle Barracks, Penn- 
sylvania, to command and refit his regiment, which had, during 
the previous November, been dismounted and ordered out of 
Texas, by the traitor General Twiggs. 

On the 2oth of April he was created lieutenant-colonel, and 
on May 3d, 18G1, colonel of the 2d cavalry, transferred to the 5th 
cavalry, August 3d, 1861, being assigned also, to the command of 
a brigade in Patterson's Army of Northern Virginia. On tlie 
17th of August, 1861, he was made brigadier-general of volun- 
teers, and was ordered to Kentucky, then in the Department of 
the Cumberland, where, on the 15th of September, he took com- 
mand of Camp Dick Eobinson. Having organized the troops 
collected there, he established Camp Wildcat, thirty miles to 
the south-east, in order to resist the advance of General Zolli- 
coffer through the Cumberland Gap. After the defeat of Zolli- 
coffer, October 26th, Thomas commenced a forward movement 
into Tennessee, but was sent to Lebanon, by General Buell, with 
a view of dislodging the rebel general A. J. Johnston from 
Bowling Green. Organizing, at Lebanon, the first division of 
the Army of the Cumberland, he defeated the rebels at Mill 
Spring, Kentucky, January 19th 1862 (during which battle 
Zollicoffer was killed), and moved through Kentucky, after the 
fall of Forts Henry and Donelson, to occupy Nashville, Tennessee. 
During the second day of the battle of Shiloh, April 7th, 1862, 
Thomas's division formed the reserve of the Army of the Cum- 
berland, and, consequently, was not engaged in action. On the 
25th April, 1862, he was confirmed major-general of volunteers, 
his division being transferred (May 1st) to the Army of the Ten- 
nessee, the right wing of which (consisting of five divisions) was 
placed under his command. Participating with that army in 
the siege of Corinth, he was, on the 10th of June, re-transferred 
to his old armv, that of the Ohio, and on the 8th of September 



154 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

was placed iu command of Nashville. On the 19lh, acting 
under orders, he overtook Buell near Cave City, and was im- 
mediatel}'- made second in the command of the army, holding 
the position during the whole of the rapid and exciting pursuit 
of Bragg's forces out of Kentucky. When, in November, 1862, 
General Rosecrans took charge of the army, which re-assumed 
its old name of "the Army of the Cumberland," General 
Thomas was given the command of the centre, consisting of live 
divisions. 

During the series of contests at Stone river, December 31st, 
1862, to January 4th, 1863, which resulted in the flight of 
Bragg's rebel army from Murfreesboro, Thomas held the ad- 
vance with a spirit which elicited from General Rosecrans, in 
his ofiicial report, the praise of " being true and prudent, distin- 
guished in council, and on many battle-fields celebrated by his 
courage." In the brilliant strategic movements through Middle 
Tennessee, which compelled the rebels first to seek refuge in 
Chattanooga, and then to abandon it, Thomas and his 14th 
army corps bore a conspicuous and honorable part. lie bore 
also the brunt of the terrible onset made by Bragg at Chicka- 
mauga (September 20th, 1863), in his desperate attack to win 
back this stronghold. "When each flank of the Union army was 
swept back and so completely routed, that Rosecrans himself 
gave up the day as lost, Thomas, resting his flanks on the sides 
of the mountain gap, repulsed, with terrible slaughter, every 
attempt of the rebel hosts to force him from his position. It is 
not too much to say that had it not been for the undaunted 
courage and extraordinary military ability of General Thomas 
on that eventful day of shifting, persistent and arduous conflict, 
Chattanooga, the results of the previous year's labor of the 
Army of the Cumberland, and even the existence of that ariii\ . 
would have been irremediably lost. On the 19th of October, 



MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE H. THOMAS. 155 

1863, General Thomas succeeded Eosecrans in the chief com- 
mand of the Army of the Cumberland, which was then in 
(General Grant's) Military Division of the Mississippi ; and was 
made a brigadier-general in the regular army, for gallantry 
at Chickamauga, his commission dating from the 27th of 
October, 1863. 

After a month spent in strengthening the Army of the Cumber- 
land and the defences of Chattanooga, Thomas and his men, on 
the 24th of jSTovember, rallied forth from that city, and, b}^ a 
rapid dash, siezed one of the rebel positions on Orchard Knob ; 
from which, on the 25th, they made that wonderful charge up 
Mission Ridge, which history records as one of the most extra- 
ordinary and daring ever performed in modern warfare. Upon 
the appointment of General Grant to tlie command of the armies 
of the United States, General Sherman was placed in command 
of the Military Division of the Mississippi, and Thomas tvas 
thus subordinated to one who was his junior in years, experi- 
ence and commission, and only two years before his subordinate. 
Thomas, however, was too true a patriot to take exception to 
this, as many would have done, but cheerfully rendered to 
Sherman all the prompt obedience and service which is due 
from the loyal soldier to his chief. 

"When Sherman set out in May, 186i, on his great march to 
Atlanta, Thomas's army formed the centre, and, during this cam- 
paign of extraordinary hardship and endurance, did its full share 
of work. At the battles of Buzzard's Roost, Resaca, Dallas, and 
Kenesaw Mountain, he led the advance, and at the battle of the 
20th July, near Atlanta, his army alone sustained the shock of 
Hood's attack, driving him back to his intrenchments, with 
heavy losses, participating also in the subsequent battles of the 
22d and 28th. Again, at Jonesboro, he drove the enemy south- 
ward ; and, after the capture of Atlanta, followed Hood to keep 



156 MEN OF OUR DAT. 

liira from attempting any serious danger to Sherman's commu- 
nications. When Sherman commenced his grand "March to 
the Sea," he placed all the troops he could spare in Thomas's 
charge, with instructions to lure Hood westward and fight him, 
if he would light, near Nashville. The bait took, and Hood, 
deceived by Thomas's feigned retreat, moved confidently for- 
ward to destruction. His first decided check was at Franklin, 
near Nashville, on the 1st, where, after nearly twelve hours of 
the most desperate fighting in the vain attempt to carry the in- 
trenchments which General Schofield's troops had hastily thrown 
up, the rebels abandoned the field, having sustained a loss, in 
killed, wounded and prisoners, of 6,252, and thirteen general 
officers either killed or wounded. 

Thomas's army, heavily reinforced, now held Nashville, which 
Hood — unable to assault — sat down to besiege, on a line of 
hills four or five miles south of the city — evidently expecting 
that he would be able to starve out the Union forces. After 
repeated and vain attempts to provoke Hood into an attack, 
General Thomas determined to assume the offensive himself. 
Nashville lies in a bend of the Cumberland river, and Thomas's 
line being stretched across the bend, his right and centre were 
guarded by the gunboats. His plan for handling Hood, pre- 
supposed two days' work. On the first day, by a bold demon- 
stration on his left (Hood's right) he hoped to attract the rebel 
general's attention and force to that wing, and then, with the 
aid of the gunboats, roll back his left wing upon the centre and, 
having reached around the flank and rear, to crush the centre 
also. On the second day he proposed to attack the rebel right 
until it gave way and then crush it. This programme was car- 
ried out almost to the letter ; the close of the first day's fighting 
found the Union troops in possession of Hood's most advanced 
pasition, sixteen pieces of artillery, some 1200 prisoners, large 



MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE H. THOMAS. 157 

quantitie.-? of small-arms and about forty wagons. That night 
Hood abandoned his now untenable fortifications and planted 
himself, with shortened lines, across the Granny White and 
Franklin turnpikes — and towards him, early on the following 
niorning, pressed the Union army. It was not, however, until 4 
p. M., that the blow fell upon the rebel general — then the Union 
cavalry swept around his flank, and the Union bayonets swept 
the entire front of his lines with the force of a whirlwind. 
Thirty minutes of desperate hand to hand fighting — and Hood's 
troops were fleeing wildly, hopelessly, from the field — pausing 
not until they had reached the farther bank of the Tennessee. 
10,000 rebels killed and wounded, 13,189 prisoners, 2207 de- 
serters, 80 cannon, with gun-carriages and caissons, 3079 small 
arms and numbers of battle-flags, were the glorius results of 
this great victory. General Forrest's defeat, by the Union 
Genei'al Milroy, at Murfreesboro, and Breckinridge's discom- 
fiture at the hands of General Stoneman, in East Tennessee, 
completed the work which General Sherman had left for his 
gallant lieutenant to perform. 

Thomas, having now thoroughly purged the State of rebels, 
prepared to send his troops into winter-quarters; but this not 
meeting with the approval of General Grant, he undertook a 
complete recruiting and re-organization of his army, which was 
soon furnished with plenty of work in various quarters. 
General Schofield's command was sent to Wilmington, North 
Carolina, and after the capture of that place, joined General 
Sherman at Goldsboro ; General Wilson's magnificent cavalry 
column passed through Selma, Montgomery, West Point, 
Columbus and Macon ; General Granger's and General A. J. 
Smith's corps, assisted at the reduction and capture of Mobile; 
and Stoneman, with a fine cavalry force, operated in south- 
western Virginia, threatening Lynchburg and entering Salis- 



158 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

bury, North Carolina, where they captured an immense amount 
of rebel stores, etc., and cut off Johnston's communications. 

In January, 1865, General Thomas received a well-merited 
promotion to the rank of major-general in the regular army ; 
and, when the army was reduced and re-organized, by general- 
order of June 27th, 1865, he was appointed commander of the 
Military Division of the Tennessee, embracing the States of 
Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama. 

In this difficult position he has administered the affairs of the 
district with admirable skill and patriotism, repressing incipient 
rebellion, aiding the administration of justice and encouraging 
the loyal. In December, 1867, President Johnson attempted to 
win him to support him in his war upon Congress, offering him 
as a bribe a brevet lieutenant-generalship and the command of 
the new Department of the Atlantic, but he was too stern a 
patriot to be won in this way, and his reply did him great 
honor. 

General Thomas has a tall and finely proportioned person, 
a fair complexion, a keen blue eye, and a frank and winning 
countenance. He is beloved by the troops who have served 
under him, and who speak of him affectionately as " Pap" 
Thomas ; and they have the most unlimited confidence in his 
goodness, skill, and ability to do any thing which mortal man 
can accomplish. Pure in aspiration, blameless in life, calm, 
thoughtful, modest, amiable, patient, persevering, a complete 
master of his profession, inexhaustible in resources, thorough in 
preparation, deliberate but energetic in action — General Thomas 
may well rank as the third soldier of the Eepublic ! 



MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE G. MEADE. 



<?%. 



^) 



I 



I achieve success where all before him had failed, to 
retain command where, from unreadiness, incapacity, or 
lack of skill and foresight, all his predecessors had been 
compelled to relinquish it, and without extraordinary 
brilliancy or genius, still, by his soldier-like bearing and his 
manly and irreproachable conduct, to win the esteem and respect 
of all who were under his command, such are the claims which 
the last commander of the army of the Potomac presents to our 
regard. George Gordon Meade was born in 1815, during the 
temporary residence of his parents at Cadiz, in Spain. His 
father, Eichard W. Meade, was a citizen of Philadelphia, and, 
while engaged in mercantile pui suits in Spain, was intrusted by 
che United States Government with the adjustment of certain 
claims against that country. He filled the offices of Consul and( 
Navy Agent of the United States most creditably, and the 
cession of Florida — to prevent whose secession the son subse- 
quently contributed so much — was the result mainly of his 
efforts. Shortly after his birth, the parents of young Meade 
returned to Philadelphia, where his youthful days were spent. 
When a bo}^, he attended the school at Georgetown, taught by 
the present Chief Justice Chase. The parents, having two sons, 
Eichard W. and the subject of this sketch, determined to devote 

them to the service of their country. The elder v/as, therefore, 

159 



i(30 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

educated I'or the Navy, which he entered in 1826, while George 
was destined for the Army, and accordingly entered the Military 
Acadeni}^, near Philadelphia, and, in 1831, the Academy at West 
Point, whence he graduated with honor in 1835. The same 
year we find him a second lieutenant in the third artillery, in 
Florida, in the Seminole war. The state of his health induced 
him to resign his commission in 1S36, and he became engaged 
in civil engineering ; but, in 18-12, he again entered the service 
as second lieutenant in the corps of Topographical Engineers, 
and in that capacity served in the Mexican war. During this 
campaign he served on the staff of General Taylor, and after- 
ward on that of General Scott, distinguishing himself at Palo 
Alto and Monterey, and receiving, as an acknowledgment of his 
gallantry, a brevet of first lieutenant, dating from September 
23, 1846 ; and also, upon his return to Philadelphia, a splendid 
sword from his townsmen. During the interval between the 
Mexican war and the rebellion, having been promoted to a full 
first lieutenancy in August, 1851, and to a captaincy of engi- 
neers in May, 1856, he was engaged with the particular duties 
of his department, more especially in the survey of the northern 
lakes ; but upon the call to arms in 1861, he was ordered east, 
and upon the organization of the Pennsylvania Eescrve Corps, 
under the three years' call. Captain Meade was made a brigadier- 
general of volunteers, and assigned the command of the second 
brigade, with General McCall as division-general, his commis- 
sion dating August 31, 1861. After wintering with the division 
at Tcnallytown, and helping to erect Fort Pennsylvania, they 
crossed the Potomac into Virginia during the early part of 1862, 
and became a portion of the Army of the Potomac. "When this 
army Vjcgan to move upon Llanasass, during March of that year. 
General Meade's brigade formed a portion of the second division 
of McDowell's first army corps, and with this corps he remained 



MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE GORDON MEADE, 161 

after that general was made commander of the Departinent of 
tlie Shenandoah. On the 18th of June, 1862, General Meade's 
rank in the regular army was advanced to that of major of 
topographical engineers, and subsequently he was confirmed 
with the same rank in the newly organized engineer corps of 
the United States army. About this time the division of Penn- 
sylvania Reserves was added to the Army of the Potomac, on 
the Peninsula. General Meade took part in the battle of Me^ 
chanicsville, June 26, 1862, and in the battle of Gaines' Mills, 
June 27, he fought so bravely as to be nominated for a brevet 
of lieutenant-colonel of the regular army for his distinguished 
services. After the capture of Generals McCall and Reynolds, 
he took charge of the division. In the battle of Ncav ^NEarket 
Cross Roads, June 30, General Meade was struck by a ball in 
his side, inflicting a painful wound ; but quickly rose from his 
bed of suffering, and was again at the head of his division. 
During the Maryland campaign he also distinguished himself at 
the head of the Pennsylvania Reserves. At Antietam, when 
General Hooker was wounded, General Meade took charge of a 
corps, and fought bravely the remainder of the day, receiving a 
slight wound and having two horses killed under him. Durinsr 
the fearful battle of Fredericksburg, he held charge of the 
second division of the first army corps, and fought in Franklin's 
left wing. He led his men boldly up to the rebel works, .nd 
doubtless would have captured them had he been properly sun- 
ported; but after losing his brigade commanders, several of hi.s 
field and line officers, and fifteen hundred men, he, with the rest 
of the army, was obliged to retire to the other side of the river. 
Two days after this eventful battle, General Meade superseded 
General Butterfield in the command of the fifth army corps. 
To enable him to hold this, he was promoted to be a major- 
general of volunteers, with rank and commission from Nov. 29, 
11 



162 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

1862. In tlie second day of the action at Chancellorsville, the 
corps of Meade and Keynolds were held in reserve by General 
Hooker, and on them he relied for covering the crossing of the 
Eapidan, when it was finally decided to withdraw to the north 
bank. They performed their part admirably and with but little 
loss. Lee's army, now rc-inforced and flushed with recent vic- 
tories easily achieved, took the offensive once more, and speed- 
ily made its way into Maryland and Pennsylvania, followed by 
Hooker. On the 28th of June, 1863, the Army of the Potomac 
was in the vicinity of Frederick, in Maryland, when a messenger 
arrived from Washington, relieving General Hooker, and invest- 
ing General Meade with the command of the army. Selected 
thus suddenly, without solicitation on his own part, and by the 
unanimous desire of the other corps commanders, he assumed 
command with a deep sense of the responsibilities thrust upon 
him, and made the best disposition of his troops in his power 
for the speedily impending battle. The following is a copy of 
his general order issued upon this occasion : 

" Headijcaktees of the Army of the Potomac, 
"June 2S, 1863. 
" General Order, No. 6G. 

" By direction of the President of the United States, I hereby 
assume the command of the Army of the Potomac. As a sol- 
dier, in obeying this order, an order totally unexpected and 
unsolicited, I have no promises or pledges to make. The coun- 
try looks to this army to relieve it from the devastation and 
disgrace of a hostile invasion. Whatever fatigues and sacrifices 
we may be called upon to undergo, let us have in view constantly 
the magnitude of the interests involved, and let each man deter- 
mine to do his duty, leaving to an all-controlling Providence 
the decision of the contest. It is with just diffidence that I re- 
lieve, in the command of this army, an eminent and accom- 
plished soldier, whose name must ever appear conspicuous 
in the history of 'ts achievements ; but I rely upon the 



MAJOR-GEXERAL GEORGE GORDON MEADE. 163 

hearty support of my companions in arms to assist me in the 
discharge of the duties of the important trust \vhich lias been 
cuntided to me. 

"GEOEGB G. MEADE, 

" Major-treneral Coiaiaamling. 
"S. F. BARSTOW, Assistant Adjutaut-general " 

General Meade at once put his columns in nnotion, and in 
three days his advance and that of the enemy met at Gettys- 
burg, and commenced the conflict. The meeting at that phice 
Avas by accident, but the advantages of the position were such, 
that instead of withdrawing his advance, upon meeting the 
enemy, he ordered his whole army up to their support. Three 
days of terrible warfare, and great loss of life upon both sides, 
resulted in the defeat of the enemy, and the abandonment of 
the northern invasion. It was the first substantial victory 
gained by the Army of the Potomac, and though the editors of 
the northern papers, and some of the impatient members of the 
Government, were inclined to blame General Meade for not 
making more ardent pursuit, and falling upon the foe, who Avas 
represented, as usual, as thoroughly demoralized, subsequent 
events have shown that, in this case, " discretion Avas the better 
part of valor." Pursuit, vigorous and effective pursuit, was 
made, and a considerable portion of the enemy's train Avas cap- 
tured, but his retreat had been at the same time SAvift and 
orderly, and so thoroughly disciplined Avere the rebel troops, 
that an attack upon them by any pursuing force which could be 
brought up promptly, must inevitably have resulted in a disas- 
trous repulse. The problem Avhether the attack should have 
been made, hoAvever, is one of a tactical nature, requiring for 
its solution special and professional knoAvledge. It is, therefore, 
one of those questions regarding AA'hich public opinion is neces- 
sarily worthless. One "hing is certain, the emphasis Avith whicli 



16-i MEN OF OUR DAY. 

the corps commauders pronounced against the assault, should 
carry with it great weight, understanding, as they did, the rela- 
tive situations of the opposing forces. 

After Lee had crossed the Potomac, General Meade hoped to 
bring him to battle before he should pass the mountains, but 
at Manassas gap, where an excellent opportunity occurred, his 
})laus were frustrated by the dilatory movements of a corps 
commander, Avho had the advance. For some time after this, 
the opposing armies lay in a state of inactivit}'-, near the Rapi- 
dan, from the necessity of heavy detachments being drawn off 
to other points. In October, Lee attempted, by a flank move- 
ment, to sever Meade's communications; but the latter was too 
quick for him. Making a retrograde movement as far as 
Centreville, to meet this effort, he followed Lee in return, and 
thus the two armies resumed nearly the same position as before 
the movement commenced. In the fighting accompanying these 
oi^erations, the Union army had the advantage, and at Bristow 
station, the rear-guard, under Warren, by a rapid movement 
won the field, and defeated the enemy. Late in November, 
Meade undertook the boldest move that the Army of the Poto- 
mac had ever yet made. Leaving his base, with ten daj^s' 
rations, he crossed the river, hoping to interpose between the 
wiii_;s of Lee's army, now in winter quarters, and stretched over 
a wide extent of country. The enemy, however, was found to 
present so forjnidable a front at Mine Run, behind intrench- 
ments, that it was thought best to forego the contemplated at- 
tack, and our forces were again withdrawn to the north bank, 
and went into cantonments for the season. "Wlicn General 
Grant, as lieutenant-general, assumed the direction of all the 
forces, his headquarters were with the Army of the Potomac. 
General Meade retained the immediate command of that ami}'-, 
and during the severe campaigns of 1864-5, led it on the bloody 



MAJOR-GEXERAL GEORGE GORDON MEADE. 165 

fields of the Wilderness, Spottsylvauia, Cold Harbor, and the 
region round about Petersburg and Richmond, winning l!ie 
approval of his great commander, who in recommending his 
confirmation as a major-general in the regular army, spoke of 
him in these emphatic words: 

"General Meade is one of our truest men, and ablest officers. 
He has been constantly with the Army of the Potomac, confront- 
ing the strongest, best appointed, and most confident army of 
the south. He, therefore, has not had the same opportunity of 
winning laurels so distinctly marked, as have fallen to the lot 
of other generals. But I defy any man to name a commander 
who would do more than Meade has done, with the same chances. 
General Meade was appointed at my solicitation, after a cam- 
paign the most protracted, and covering more severely contested 
battles than anj'- of which we have any account in historj-. T 
have been with General Meade through the whole campaign; 
and I not only made the recommendation u])on a conviction 
that this recognition of his services was fnlly Avon, but that he 
was eminently qualified for the command suck rank would en- 
title him to." 

Congress confirmed the appointment, dating his commission 
from August 18th, 186-1. At the close of the war General 
Meade returned for a brief season to his home in Philadelphia, 
where he was received with the highest honors. He was soon 
after appointed to the command of the military division of the 
Atlantic, in which were included all the States on the Atlautio 
coast, and which was perhaps the most important of the military 
departments. His management of this department was able and 
judicious, but without many events of note. He acted prompt- 
ly and wisely, under the direction of the lieutenant general, 
in suppressing the Fenian movement for the invasion of 
Canada. When, in the autumn of 1867, President Johnson 



166 MEN OF OUR BAY. 

having become dissatisfied with General Pope's administration 
in Georgia, Alabama and Florida, in consequence of that 
general's furthering rather than hindering tLe enforcement of 
tlie congressional plan of reconstruction, he removed him and 
transferred General Meade to the command of that military 
district, he mistook as he had so often done before, his man. 
General Meade is thoroughly loyal, and obedient to the laws, 
and finding that the congressional plan was the law of the land, 
he obeyed it as strictly, and promptly, as his predecessor had 
done ; even taking measures, such as the removal of the State 
provisional officers of Georgia for contumacy and insubordina- 
tion, at which General Pope had hesitated. He has maintained 
a dignified and honorable course in regard to the Constitutional 
Conventions of the States of his district, and whatever may be 
his own political views, he has sought only to administer the 
laws foithfully, without fear or favor. The Constitutional Con- 
vention of Florida, which at one time was on the point of 
breaking into two impotent factions, was, by his counsels and 
efi:brts, harmonized, and the successful future of the re-organized 
State assured. 

The personal appearance of General Meade is correctly de- 
scribed by an English writer, who was, introduced to him soon 
after the battle of Gettysburg. " He is a very remarkable look- 
ing man — tall, spare, of a commanding figure and presence ; 
his manners easy and pleasant, but having much dignity. His 
head is partially bald, and is small and comi:)act ; but the fore- 
head is high. He has the late Duke of Wellington class of 
nose ; and his eyes which have a serious, and almost sad expres- 
sion, are rather sunken, or appear so, from the prominence of 
the curved nasal development. He has a decidedly patrician 
and distinguished appearance. I had some conversation with him 
and of his recent achievements he spoke in a modest and natural 



MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE GORDON MEADE. 167' 

'A\iy. He said that lie liacl been very " fortunate ;" but was 
most especially anxious not to arrogate to himself any credit 
whicli be did not deserve. lEe said that tbe triumph of the 
Federal arms was due to the splendid courage of the Union 
troops, and also to tlic bad strategy, and rash and mad attacks 
made by the enemy. He said that his health was remarkably 
good and that he could bear almost any amount of physical 
fatigue. What he complained of was, the intense mental 
anxiety occasioned by the great responsibility of his position. 

General Meade, in 1840, married a daughter of lion. Johu 
Sergeant, of Philadelphia, and has a large family. 



MAJOR-GENERAi. Ui^lViiK Uiib tiuwr^i^u. 



Qm A JOE-GENERAL OLIVER OTIS HOWARD, "the 
Havelock of the American Union Army," was born at 
^v^ Leeds, Kennebec county, Maine, on the 8th of November, 
1830, the eldest of three children of parents in moderate, 
but independent, circumstances. "Working upon the farm until 
his tenth year, he was then, by his father's death, left in the care 
of an uncle, Hon. John Otis, of Hallowell, Maine. Having attained 
a good common-school education, he, in 1846, matriculated at 
Bowdoin College, from which he graduated at the head of his 
class in 1850. Entering immediately the United States Military 
Academy at West Point, he graduated from that institution in 
June, 1854, with the fourth rank in his class. He was assigned 
to the Ordnance Department, with brevet rank of second lieuten- 
ant, served in Texas and Florida, and was subsequently trans- 
ferred to the United States arsenal at Augusta, Georgia ; and 
from thence to the arsenal at Watervliet, Maine. On the 1st of 
July, 1855, he was made a second lieutenant by promotion ; and on 
the 1st of July, 1857, promoted to be first lieutenant, and appointed 
Acting Assistant Professor of Mathematics at West Point, which 
position he held at the commencement of the rebellion. On the 
28th of May, 1861, he resigned his professorship and accepted a 
commission as colonel of the third Maine volunteers, the first three 

years regiment that left that State; and, as seuior colonel, led a bri- 
1G8 



MAJOR-GENERAL OLIVER OTIS HOWARD. 169 

gade at the battle of Bull Eim, July 21, 1861. The gallantry and 
ability manifested on that occasion secured for him (September 
3d) the rank of brigadier-general, and he was placed in com- 
mand of a brigade in General Casey's provisional division, to 
which was then intrusted the charge of the national capital. 
In the following December, he was assigned to General Sumner's 
command, the first brigade of the first division of the second army 
corps, in McClellau's Peninsula campaign. At Fair Oaks, June 
1, 1802, while gallantly leading a decisive charge, he was struck 
in the right arm by two bullets, one near the wrist and the other 
at the elbow ; he did not leave the field, however, until wounded 
a second time, when he was obliged to go to the rear and submit 
to an amputation of the limb. In the words of a friend, " Weak 
and fainting from hemorrhage and the severe shock which his 
s^'stem had sustained, the next day he started for his home in 
Elaine. He remained there only about two months, during 
which time he was not idle. Visiting various localities in his 
native State, he made patriotic appeals to the people to come 
forward and sustain the Government. Pale, emaciated, and 
with one sleeve tenantless, he stood up before them, the embodi- 
ment of all that is good and true and noble in manhood. lie 
talked to them as only one truly loyal can talk — as one largely 
endowed with that patriotism which is a heritage of New Eng- 
land blood. Modesty, sincerity and earnestness characterized 
his addresses, and his fervent appeals drew hundreds around the 
national standard." Before he had recovered from his wound, 
and against the advice of his surgeon, he hastened to the front, 
and at the head of a brigade of the second (French's) division, 
(his own being temporarily commanded by General Caldwell,) 
he took part in the second battle of Bull Run ; and in the re- 
treat from Centreville he commanded the rear-guard. At Antie- 
tam he succeeded General Sedgwick, who was wounded, in com- 



170 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

maud of bis division. On the loth of December, at the battle 
of Fredericksburg, lie led his division, in support of General 
French's, in the heroic charge made upon the rebel position in 
the rear of that city. In this attempt — in which the Union 
troops, in the words of their commander, "did all that men 
could do — Iloward's brigade alone lost nearly a thousand men." 

During the succeeding winter he held the command of the 
second division of the second corps ; and, in April, 1863, was 
confirmed as major-general of volunteers (his commission 
dating from the 29th of the preceding November), and was 
transferred to the command of the eleventh corps, thereby re- 
lieving General Sigel. His new command was composed of 
German troops, many of whom could not even speak the 
English language and all enthusiastically devoted to their 
former commander, who, for some inscrutable governmental 
reason, had so suddenly been taken away from them. With 
these men, good and true soldiers, yet demoralized to a certain 
degree by the change of command, and before time had been 
afforded to him for re-organiz ng them or becoming better known 
to them. General lEoward was fated to meet the first onset of 
the rebel attack at Chaucellorsville. Under the unexpected and 
crushing blow, and despite the heroic endeavors of Howard 
himself, they broke and ran, causing a panic which had well 
nigh proved the irretrievable ruin of the whole Union army. 

The eleventh and its commander keenly felt the dishonor of 
this day — but the noble-hearted and patient Lincoln's confi- 
dence in the subject of our sketch was unshaken, and when a 
change of commanders was urged, he simply replied, " Howard 
will bring it up to the work, only give him time." And 
splendidly did Howard and his men redeem their credit upon 
the battle- field of Gettysburg, on the first, second, and third of 
fuly, 15Go. It was to his happy forethought, on the first day 



MAJOR-GENERAL OLIVER OTIS HOWARD. 171 

of that battle, in seizing Cemeter}^ llill, that we may in a great 
measure, attribute the favorable results of the lighiing on the 
two succeeding days. It " was one of those divine inspirations 
on wliich destinies turn," giving him a stronghold of defence 
and shelter, when, as he must have foreseen, and as happened 
three hours later, he was obliged to retire in the face of an 
enemy more than double his own number. And, on this hill, 
the natural centre of the Union lines, the eleventh corps, burn- 
ing to wipe out the memory of Chancellorsville, met and terri- 
bly repulsed the brunt of the attack by the rebel General 
Ewell's division, at sunset of the second day. On the third 
day of this terrible light, Howard's corps still held the same 
position, grimly watching the sublime panorama of battle 
which unrolled before them. " I have seen many men in 
action," wrote an eye-witness, " but never one so imperturba- 
bly cool as this general of the eleventh corps. I watched him 
closely as a minie whizzed overhead. I dodged, of course. I 
never expect to get over that habit. But I am confident that 
he did not move a muscle by the fraction of a hair's breadth." 
At last, however, came the furious final charge of the despei- 
ate veterans of Lee's arni}^, recklessly bent on obtaining posses- 
sion of Cemetery Hill. Two hundred and fifty cannon concen- 
trated their unintermitted and terrific fire upon the Union 
centre (Howard's position) and the left — but Howard simply 
ordered one after another of his guns to be quiet, as if silenced 
by the enemy's fire, and his gunners flung themselves flat upon 
the ground. Suddenly, as the rebel line, in huge semicircular 
sweep, reached the Emmctsburg road, the Germans of the 
eleventh corps sprang to their guns, and along the whole front 
of the Union centre and left, more than four miles long — there 
rained such a storm of fiery, pitiless hail of death-bolts upon the 
advancing foe, as swept away not only the last hope of 



172 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

the Confederate chieftain, but, almost literally, liis best array. 
Gettysburg was won, and the North Avas saved. President 
Lincoln sent to Howard an autograph letter of thanks for his 
inestimable services, and Congress passed a vote of similar 
import-. General Hancock having been severely wounded in 
this battle, the command of his corps (the second) was given to 
Howard. 

In the fall of 1863, after the battle of Chiokamauga, Generals 
Howard and Hooker, with their corps, were sent to reinforce 
Eosecrans, in Tennessee, and at Chattanooga came under the 
command of General Grant, Avho had then recently assumed the 
leadership of the Military Division of the Mississippi. Here it 
was, also, that Howard became acquainted with General Sherman, 
and laid the foundation of an intimacy which increased until the 
close of the war. Together they led their respective corps in 
the assault upon Fort Buckner, on the second day of the battle 
for the possession of Mission Eidge (November 25, 1863), and it 
was Howard's cavalry which contributed largely to the more 
complete discomfiture of the routed rebels, by the destruction 
of the Dalton and Cleveland railroad. In the long and severe 
march of Sherman, to the relief of General Burnside, at Knox- 
ville, in December, 1863, General Howard bore a conspicuous 
part, winning the highest commendation for fidelity and intelli- 
gence from Sherman, who says, in his official report : " Tn Gen- 
eral Howard throughout, I found a polished and Christian 
gentleman, exhibiting the highest and most chivalrous traits 
of the soldier." During the whole of General Sherman's march 
to Atlanta (May to August, 1864), General Howard and his 
men did splendid service. During the siege of that place, the 
brave and beloved General McPherson was killed on the 21st 
of July, and his command, that of the Army of the Tennessee, 
was given, by the President, at General Sherman's request, to 



MAJOR-GENERAL OLIVER OTIS nOU^ARD. 173 

i\[;\j or- General Howard. In tlie opening movement (on the 
20th of August) of General Sherman's feint towards raising the 
siege of Atlanta, General Howard's column was impetuously 
attacked by Lee and Hardee's rebel force, and repulsed tliem 
witli terrible slaughter; and again, at Jonesboro, on the olst of 
August, he dealt to Hood's army the last crushing blow, which 
drove him routed from Atlanta, thenceforth open to the Union 
troops. 

In Sherman s " March to the Sea," from Atlanta to Savannah, 
Major-General Howard led the right wing, marching down the 
Macon road, destroying the railroad, and scattering the rebel 
cavalry — and passing through Jackson, Monticello, and IYiUb- 
boro, to Milledgeville, the capital of the State, where he was 
joined by the left wing of the army, under General Slocum. 
From Millen, the united arjny moved down on either bank of 
the Ogeechee river, and Howard's column, by the 8th of Decem- 
ber, had reached and seized the Gulf railroad, within twenty 
miles of Savannah. On the night of the 9th, Howard commu- 
]ilcated, by scouts, with a Union gunboat lying two miles below 
Fort McAllister — which shortly after fell into the hands of the 
Union troops — and Generals Sherman and Howard went down 
to tlie fleet in a small boat, where they met Admiral Dahlgren. 
Their ^reat work was done, and Savannah was a splendid Christ- 
mas gift to the President, and to the nation.* Early in February 

* A story is told of this boat voyage, which ilkisti-ates, to some extent, 
tlie characters of both General Sherman and General Howard. On finding 
the fort carried, and his array again in communication with the Union 
army and navy, General Sherman was much elated and jubilant, and soon 
after they embarked, he said : " I feel good ; I want to sing or shout, but 
my musical education was neglected. Boys" (to the staff officers in the 
boat), "can't you sing something?" The "boys" seemed at a loss. 
" Howard," said the general, " I know you can sing, for I have heard 
you." " But, general," replied Howard, " 1 can't sing anything hv\ hymn 



174 MEN OF OCR DAT. 

commenced the march througli the Carolinas, in -which Howard 
again led the right wing, moving towards Beaufort, and menac- 
ing Charleston — and finally entering Columbia, the capital of 
the Palmetto State. Then pressing into North Carolina, they 
met and whipped Johnston's rebel army at Averysboro, on the 
20th of March, 1865 ; and while on the march for Raleigh, on 
the 12th of April, were delighted b}^ the glad news of Lee's 
surrender. 

Congress, at the close of the march of Sherman's army to the 
sea, in December 186-1, promoted General Howard to the rank 
of brigadier-general in the regular army, his commission dating 
from the 21st of December, 1861, and the Thirty-ninth Con- 
gress, at their first session, conferred on him the brevet rank of 
major-general in the regular army, dating from March 13, 1865. 

When the Thirt^'-eighth Congress, at the suggestion of the 
lamented Lincoln, determined upon the organization of a 
" Bureau of Freedmen, Refugees, and Abandoned Lands," it was 
felt almost instinctively that General Howard was the man to 
be at the head of it, and no nomination made by the Secretary 
of War was more heartily approved than that by which he was 
named commissioner. Owing to the necessary duties connected 
with the closing up of his command of the right wing of General 
Sherman's arm}'-, General Howard was unable to take charge of 
his Bureau until May 12th, 1865. In its organization there 
were manifold difficulties to be overcome. The act was loosely 
drawn ; many matters were left discretionary with the commis- 
sioner and his assistants, in which these duties should have been 

tunes. 1 don't know any thing else." "Those will be just as good as any 
thing else." said the commanding general; "sing them." And so, as they 
ran down to the squadron. Howard made the air vocal with " Shining 
Shore." "Homeward Bound." and "Rock of Ages ;" the stafif officers 
joining in, and Sherman occasionally trying a stave or two — though it 
was evident, as ne said, that his musical education had bocii neglected. 



MAJOR-GENEKAL OLIVER OTIS HOWARD. 175 

defined: and tlieir authoritv in manv particulars was insufficient 
to enforce measures which were absolutely necessary ; still, the 
affairs of the Bureau were managed with a discretion, an integ- 
rity and a conscientious regard for right in the conflicting inter- 
ests of the frecdnian and his former master, Avhich won for the 
commissioner and his subordinates the esteem and respect of 
the intelligent and loyal of all classes. 

When Mr. Johnson began to drift back to his old affinities 
with the rebels, and to sympathize with those whom he had at 
first so loudly proclaimed must be severely punished, the Freed- 
men's Bureau, and its upright and faithful commissioner, became 
objects of his utter aversion. He recommended that the Bureau 
should not be suffered to exist beyond the time specified in the 
first organic act, viz., two years ; and when a new Freedmen's 
Bureau bill passed both houses of Congress, he vetoed it, 
attempting in a long argument to show the Heedlessness of any 
such Bureau of the Government. The bill was not passed over 
his veto, but later in the session a better bill, re-organizing it in 
some particulars, but retaining its substantial features and con- 
templating the retention of General Howard as commissioner, 
was passed by a strong vote, and Avhen Mr. Johnson vetoed it, 
was passed again b}^ the constitutional majority of two-thirds. 
Mr. Johnson then gave out that he had determined upon the re- 
moval of General Howard from the commissionership, but as the 
Tenure of Office act clearly prohibited this, he has been obliged 
to allow him to remain, but has done what he could to hinder 
him from accomplishing what he desired. The President has par- 
doned, whenever application has been made, and sometimes 
even without application, the most violent rebels, especially if 
their lands had been confiscated and were inuring to the bene- 
fit of the Freedmen's Bureau, and has invariably ruled that his 
pardon entitled them to the restoration of all their lands unless 



176 MEN OP OUR DAY. 

these had been sold for the non-payment of the direct revenue 
tax. This action of the President has in many instances seri- 
ously crippled the usefulness of the Freedmen's Bureau, taking 
from it a source of legitimate revenue and often requiring the 
relinquishment of lands occupied by colonies of freedmen, or 
for schools or churches for their intellectual or religious in- 
struction ; but, during the whole period, General Iloward has 
maintained a discreet and dignified course. He has done all 
that lay in his power to promote both common and higher 
education among the people of color, co-operating with the 
voluntary freedmen's associations and commissions in the 
maintenance of schools, and founding a university for them in 
the immediate vicinity of Washington, w^hile he bas, so far us 
possible, furthered the efforts of religious bodies for the better 
education of native colored preachers and teachers. 

Literary honors have been profusely showered on the general; 
Waterville (now Colby) college, Maine, and Shurtleft" college, 
Illinois, both conferred on him the degree of LL.D. in 1865, 
and the Gettysburg Seminary did the same in 1866. 

Major-General Howard has proved himself a true man under 
all circumstances. In his military career, he was always calm, 
brave to the verge of rashness, unconscious of fear, and at all 
times capable of making the best dispositions possible of his 
troops; a good disciplinarian, but much beloved by his men, 
strictly conscientious and commending his avowed religious 
principles, rather by a pure, holy, and consistent life, than by 
any ostentatious displays of his piety.* In his administrative 

* General Sherman once said of him ; " I bcUeve Howard is a real Chris- 
tian. !My wife is very strict in her rehgious observances" (Mrs. Sherman is 
a Roman CathoHc), " and that is all very well, but Howard is difTerent. He 
don't make any ])arade of his religion, but he has something about him, 
which 1 haven't, but which I wish I had." 



MAJOR-GENERAL OLIVER OTIS HOWARD. 177 

position, he has manifested rare ability, in the midst of great 
difficulties ; has avoided giving offence when it seemed almost 
impossible to do so ; yet he has never failed to do what he had 
the power to do for the poor and helpless, or to protect their 
rights, so far as his authority extended. There is, we hope, a 
brilliant and useful future yet before this young and capable 
officer. 

12 



SALMON PORTLAND CHASE. 




II HIS distinguislied statesman, jurist and financier — wliose 
j somewhat peculiar baptismal names were conferred upon 
i^^ liim in memory of a deceased uncle Salmon, a resident 
of the town of Portland, Maine — was born at Cornish, 
New Hampshire, on the 13th of January, 1808. He traces his 
descent from Aquila Chase, a native of Cornwall, England, who 
was born in 1618, and, while quite young, came to America and 
settled at Newburyport, Massachusetts. Dudley Chase, the 
grandfather of Secretary Chase, and fourth in descent from 
Aquila, procured a grant of land on the Connecticut river, north 
of Charleston, (or, as it was then called, Fort^ No. 4,) upon which 
he settled, naming the township Cornish, in honor of the original 
home of his English ancestry. His children became notable 
persons in that region ; one of them. Philander, being the Epis- 
copal Bishop of Ohio, and the founder of Kenyon College ; and 
another, D. P. Chase, became Chief Justice of Vermont. Another 
brother, Ithaman Chase, the father of the subject of this sketch,- 
was a fine specimen of the old-fashioned New Englander, of im- 
posing stature, great natural dignity, and an affability of manner 
which rendered him, in the best sense of the word, a gentleman. 
Sagacious, honest, energetic, and — Yankee-like — turning his 
hand to whatever business chance offered, he succeeded, 
farmer, merchant, surveyor and manufacturer, in accumulating! 
178 



SALMON PORTLAND CHA.SE. 179 

a handsome property. lie secured, also, the confidence ::nd 
good-will of his fellow-citizens, whom he long served in the 
capacity of a justice of the peace, and whom, for many years, 
he acceptably represented in the Executive Council of New 
Ilampsl iro, The close of the "war of 1812" brought disaster 
tc his fortunes, and necessitated, in 1815, his removul to Keene, 
New Hampshire, where, two years later, he suddenly died, leav- 
ing his family with little else than the heritage of an honorable 
name and a well-spent life. His wife, however, who was of 
Scotch descent, and possessed much of the energy and thrift 
characteristic of that race, had inherited from lier parents a little 
property, which still remained intact after the wreck of her 
husband's fortunes. By a careful husbanding of her resources, 
therefore, she was enabled to keep her children in comparative 
comfort, and to give a mother's tender thought and direction to 
their earlier studies. Young Chase, at tlie schools of Keene, 
and afterwards at a boarding school, kept by one of his father's 
old friends, at Windsor, Vermont, had mastered the elementary 
parts of knowledge, had got through the Latin Gi-ammar, read 
a little in Yirgil's Bucolics, and had commenced Greek and 
Euclid, when, in the spring of 1820, his mother received from 
her brotlier-in-law, the Bishop of Ohio, an offer to take charge 
of and educate the lad. The proposition was joyfully accepted, 
and, before long, Salmon started on his long journey westward, 
in company with his elder brother Alexander, who had just 
graduated from college, and was going (in company with Henry 
E. Schoolcraft, since distinguished as a traveller, ethnologist 
and writer) to join General Cass's exj^edition to the Upper Mis 
sissippi. 

At Cleveland the young traveller parted from his brother and 
friend, and spent nearly a month with a friend of his uncle, 
while waiting for an opportunity to reach that relative, ^^]iO 



180 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

resided at Worthington, in the interior of the State. "While 
thus delayed, the boy was by no means idle, but employed him- 
self much of the time in ferrying travellers across the Cu3'ahoga, 
upon the eastern bank of which stream the town stood, thereby 
adding somewhat to his slender funds, and gaining a lesson of 
industrious self-reliance which was of much use to him in the 
future. At length, however, an opportunity offered for Salmon's 
proposed journey. He was placed in charge of two theological 
students, en route for "Worthington, on horseback, and with them 
— travelling " ride and tie," as was frequently done in the time 
of the early settlement of the AVest — he made the long trip 
through the woods, fording streams, and meeting with many 
adventures which were full of interest and novelty. Arriving 
at Worthington, he was received into the family of his uncle, 
the bishop, a most excellent man, but a rigid disciplinarian, 
wljere he fulfilled the menial office of "chore boy" during the 
intervals of study. In mathematics and the languages he made 
excellent progress, despite the disadvantages under Avhich he 
labored, of being so much and arduously occupied with farm 
duties. In composition he was proficient, and in Greek he so 
far excelled as to be the Greek orator of the bishop's school at 
its annual exhibition in the summer of 1821. One of his inti- 
mate schoolmates says : " Never have I known a purer or more 
virtuous-minded lad than he was. He had an extreme aversion 
to any thing dishonorable or vicious. lie was industrious and 
attentive to business. Laboring on the farm of his uncle, he 
missed many recitations, and had but limited chances for study, 
yet, having a natural fondness for books, he was surpassed by 
no one of his age in the school. He had little regard for his 
personal appearance, or, indeed, for any thing external. His mind 
appeared lo be directed to what was ri(j]U, regardless of the 
opinions of others." In the fall of 1822, Bishop Chase removed 



SALMON PORTLAND CHASE. 181 

to Cincinnati, having accepted the presidency of the collego 
there ; and here a somewhat easier life, in some respects, fell to 
Salmon's lot. He entered the freshman class of the college, 
and studying hard, attained the rank of sophomore, when his 
studies were interrupted hy the removal, in August, 1823, of the 
bishop, who resigned the presidency, in order to visit England, 
with the purpose of obtaining the necessary funds for a Pro- 
testant Episcopal Seminary in the West, an effort which finally 
resulted in the establishment of Kcuyon College. Salmon 
returned to his home in New Ilampshire, travelling a large por- 
tion of the way on foot ; and, after a short period of school- 
teaching, and a few months of close and rapid preparation at 
the academy in Eoyalton, Vermont, entered the junior class of 
Dartmouth College. During his collegiate course, an incident 
occurred strongly indicative of that innate love of right which 
has ever been so marked a feature of Mr. Chase's character. 
An intimate friend and classmate having been arbitrarily accused, 
and, despite his asseverations of his innocence, condemned to 
rustication, by the faculty, for a trivial offence committed by 
other parties, Salmon waited u[>on the president, protested 
against the decision of the faculty as unjust, and finding it irre- 
vocable, declared his intension to leave the college with his 
friend — and did leave. The faculty sent a messenger after them, 
who overtook them on the road, with a revocation of their sen- 
tence ; but the inexorable young men did not return until they 
had spent a pleasant week of visiting among their friends and 
relatives; and their re-entry into Hanover was a triumph. As 
one of the foremost third of the senior class, young Chase was 
admitted into the Phi Beta Kappa Society, and at his gradua- 
tion, in 1826, he ranked eighth, delivering an oration on "Lit- 
erary Curiosity. Going directly to Washington, D. C, he an- 
nounced, in the columns of the " National Intelligencer," of 



X82 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

December 23d, 1826, bis intention to open a select classical 
scbool in tbat city on tbe first Monday of tbe ensuing year ; but 
for a time fortune seemed to look most discouragingly upon 
bim. Patience and courage, bowever, bad tbeir perfect work ; 
and, fiually, be most unexpectedly received tbe offer of tbe male 
department of a well-establisbed classical scbool, tbe proprietors 
of wbicb bad determined to give tbeir wbole time and attention 
to tbe female department. In tbis scbool (in a little, one-story 
frame building on G street,) be commenced teacbing, receiving 
tbe patronage of many eminent men, among wbom were Henry 
Clay, William Wirt, and Samuel L. Soutbard, wbo entrusted 
tbeir sons to bis care. Wbile tbus arduously engaged, be occu- 
pied all bis leisure time in studying law under William Wirt, 
tben Attorney-General of tbe United States ; and upon attaining 
bis majority, in 1829, closed bis scbool, and was admitted to tbe 
bar of tbe District of Columbia in February, 1830. 

On tbe 4tb, of Marcb, 1830, be set out for Cincinnati, wbere 
be commenced tbe practice of bis profession, witb an energy 
and perseverance wbicb could not fail to secure ultimate success. 
He formed a partnersbip witb Edward King, Esq., son of tbe 
celebrated Rufus King, wbicb bowever was of sbort duration; and 
in 1833, be formed anotber connecti(yi witb Mr. Caswell, a lawyer 
of establisbed reputation, and, wbile striving to obtain cases, be 
diligently busied bimself witb tbe compilation of tbe statutes of 
Obio, accompanied witb copious annotations and prefaced witb 
a historical sketcb of the State, tbe wbole forming three large 
octavo volumes. Tbis valuable compendium — the fruit of a 
careful use of time which young professional men too often fail 
to improve — soon superseded all other editions of the statutes, 
and is now tbe accepted authority in tbe courts. While the 
reading and investigations necessary to the compilation of this 
work, added largely to his stores of legal knowledge, tbe admi- 



SALMON PORTLAND CHASE. 183 

rable manner in which it was prepared, gave its young author 
an immediate reputation among the profession, and secured him 
the notice and respect of the active business community by 
which he was surrounded. It was the stepping-stone to hia 
fortune. Early in 1834, he was made the solicitor of the United 
States bank, in Cincinnati, to which was soon added a similar 
position connected with another of the city banks, and he was 
soon engaged in the full tide of a large and lucrative commer- 
cial practice. 

In 1837 the partnership ol Caswell and Chase was dissolved, 
and shortly after the latter formed a connection with Mr. Ellis. 
Mr. Chase now first came distinctly and prominently before the 
public, in connection with those higher interests with which his 
name is now so widely associated. 

In July, 1836, when the office of the " Philanthropist" news- 
paper, published by James Gr. Birney, was attacked and de- 
spoiled by an anti-slavery mob, Birney's life was saved by the 
courage of Salmon P. Chase, who, from that time, was foremost 
among those who breasted the tide of pro-slavery aggressions. 

In 1837, as the counsel of a colored fugitive slave woman, 
claimed under the law of 1793, he made an elaborate argument 
denying the right of Congress to delegate to State magistrates, 
powers in such fugitive slave cases — a position since sustained 
by the Supreme Court of the United States and maintained that 
the law of 1793 was void, because unwarranted by the Consti- 
tution. 

In passing from the court room after making this brave, but 
ineffectual defence in this case, he overheard the remark of a 
prudent citizen, '' TJicre is a promising young man who has just 
ruined himself ^ Time has proved how erroneous this judgment 
was, yet it was then the popular verdict. During the same year, 
Mr. Chase defended James G. Birney, who was tried before tho 



184 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

Supreme Court of Ohio, for haboring a negro slave — forcibly 
aro-uing tliat slavery was a local institution, dependent for its 
existence upon State legislation ; and that the slave, having 
been brought into Ohio, by her master, was de facto et de jure, 
free. This was followed, in 1838, by a severe review from his 
pen, in the newspapers, of a recent report made by the Judiciary 
committee of the State Senate, in which they had advocated 
the refusal of trial by jury, to slaves. He also acted as counsel 
for Mr. Birney, in his trial for haboring the slave Matilda ; and, 
in 1842, defended one Yan Zandt, in the United States Circuit 
Court, in a similar trial, in which the principle as stated by the ' 
opposing counsel, " Once a slave always a slave," was met by 
Mr. Chase with its nobler antithesis " Once free, always free ;" 
and he followed it with a warning and eloquent denunciation of 
the atrocious claims of slavery. In these cases, Mr. Chase added 
materially to his previous honorable reputation, and took rank, 
thenceforward, with the oldest and ablest practitioners of Ohio. 
Up to this time, he had taken but little part or interest in 
politics, nor had he settled down into the trammels of any par- 
ticular party — voting sometimes with the Democrats, but more 
generally with the Whigs, because the latter seemed most 
favorable to the anti-slavery doctrines to which he had given 
his conscientious adherence. He supported Harrison for the 
Presidency,, in 1840 ; but, becomiiag convinced from the tone of 
his inaugural address and the subsequent course of the Tyler 
administration that the anti-slavery cause had little or nothing 
to hope for from the Whig party, and that the cause could 
only attain its legitimate aims, which he considered of para- 
mount importance, through the instrumentality of a distinct 
party organization, he united with others, in 1841, in calling 
a State convention of the opponents of slavery and slavery- 
extension. The convention met in December, organized " the 



SALMON PORTLAND CHASE. 185 

Libei'tj party" of Ohio, nominated a candidate for governor, 
and issued an address (from Mr Chase's pen) defining its 
principles and purposes, which was one of the earliest exposi- 
tions of the anti-slavery movement. In the " National Liberty 
convention," held at Buffalo, New York, in 18-i3, Mr. Chase 
was a prominent participant, and as a member of the committee 
on resolutions, so vigorously opposed a resolution which pro- 
posed " to regard and treat the third clause of the Constitution, 
whenever applied to the case of a fugitive slave, as utterly null 
and void, and consequently as forming no part of the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, whenever we are called upon or 
sworn to support it," — that it was not adopted by the committee, 
although it was afterwards moved and adopted in the conven- 
tion. Years afterward, when Senator Butler, of South Caro- 
lina, charged Mr. Chase with having been the author and 
advocate of this resolution, and severely denounced the doctrine 
of mental reservation which it impliedly sanctioned, the latter 
replied, " I never proposed the resolution ; I never would pro- 
pose a vote for such a resolution. I hold no doctrine of mental 
reservation; every man, in my judgment, should speak just as 
he thinks, keeping nothing back, here or elsewhere." During 
the same year Mr. Chase was selected to prepare an address 
on behalf of the friends of Liberty, of Ireland and of Eepeal, 
in Cincinnati, in reply to the letter from Daniel O'Connell, in 
behalf of the Loyal National Eepeal Association of Ireland. 
This address — which reviewed the relations of the Federal Gov- 
ernment to slavery at the period of its organization, set forth its 
original anti-slavery policy, and the subsequent growth of the 
political power of slavery, indicated the action of the Liberal 
party, and repelled the aspersions cast by a Repeal Association 
in Cincinnati, upon anti-slavery men — was a document worthy 
of Mr. Chase'? talents. With Mr. Chase, also, originated the 



186 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

Southern and Western Liberty Convention, held at Cincinnati, in 
June, 1845, and designed, in the words of its founder, to 
embrace " all who, believing that whatever is worth preserving 
in EepubHcanism can be maintained only b}^ uncompromising 
war against the usurpations of the slave power, are therefore, 
resolved to use all constitutional and honorable means to effect 
the extinction of slavery in their respective States, and its re- 
duction to its constitutional limits in the United States." He 
also drew up the address of the Convention, embracing a his- 
tory of the Whig and Democratic parties in their relations to 
the slavery question, and urging the political necessity of 
forming a party pledged to the overthrow of the institution. 

]\Ir. Chase, who had now become a widely distinguished 
champion of anti-slavery, was associated with William H. 
Seward in the defence of John Van Zandt, who was arraigned 
before the United States Supreme Court, for aiding in the 
escape of certain slaves ; and subsequently he was retained for 
the defence in the case of Dieskell vs. Parish, before the United 
States Circuit Court, at Columbus, Ohio. In both of these 
cases he argued, in a most elaborate manner, that, " under the 
ordinance of 1787, no fugitives from service could be reclaimed 
from Ohio, unless there had been an escape from one of the 
original States; that it was the clear understanding of the 
framers of the Constitution, and of the people who adopted it, 
that slavery was to be left exclusively to the disposal of the 
several States, without sanction or support from the National 
Government ; and that the clause of the Constitution relative to 
persons held to service was one of compact between the States, 
and conferred no power of legislation on Congress, having been 
transferred from the ordinance of 1787, in which it conferred no 
power on the Confederation and was never understood to con- 
fer any." In 18-17, Mr. Chase attended a second " National 



SALMON rOKTLAND CHASE. 187 

Liberty Convention ;" where, in the hope that the agitation of 
the Wilmot Proviso would result in a more decided movement 
against slaver\'-, he opposed the making of any national nomina- 
tions at that time. He anticipated, also, the Whig and 
Democratic Conventions of 18-i8, by calling a Free-Territory 
Convention, which resulted in the Buffalo Convention, in 
August of that year, and the nomination of Mr. Van Burcn for 
the presidency. 

On the 22d of February, 1849, Mr. Chase was elected to the 
United States Senate, by the entire vote of the Democrats, and 
a large number of the free-soil members of the Ohio Legislature. 
Supporting the State policy and the nominees of the Democracy 
of the State, he still declared that he would desert it if it de- 
serted the anti-slavery position which it then held. On the 26th 
and 27th of March, 1849, he delivered a cogent, eloquent and 
timely speech against the compromise resolutions ; following it 
up during the session, with others on the specialities embraced 
within these resolution, and moved three amendments — one, 
against the introduction of slavery, in the Territories to which 
Mr. Clay's bill applied ; another, to the Fugitive Slave Bill, to 
secure trial by jury to alleged slave ; and the third, to an amend- 
ment made by Senator Davis, relative to the reclamation of 
fugitives escaping from one State into another — all of w^hich, 
however, were lost. 

The nomination of ' Franklin Pierce for the presidency, and 
the approval of the compromise of 1850, by the Democratic 
Convention at Baltimore, in 1852, was the signal for Mr. Chase's 
withdrawal from the Ohio Democracy. He immediately took the 
initiative in the formation of an Independent Democratic party, 
which he continued to support, until the Nebraska-Kansas bill 
beo-an to be agitated. To this bill he was a strenuous and 
prominent opponent, offering three important amendments, 



188 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

which w'QTQ severally rejected, and closing his opposirion by an 
earnest protest against it on its final passage. During his Sena- 
torial career, economy in the National Finances ; a Pacific Eail- 
road by the shortest and best route ; the Homestead Bill ; Cheap 
Postage, and the provision by the National Treasury for defray- 
ing the expense of procuring safe navigation of the Lakes as 
well as the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, all found in Mr. Chase 
an able and earnest champion. In 1855, he was elected Gover- 
nor of Ohio, by the opponents of the Pierce administration, and 
his inaugural address recommended single districts for legisla- 
tive representation, annual, instead of biennial sessions of the 
Legislature, and an extended educational system. At the next 
National Eepublican Convention, he declined the nomination 
for the Presidency, which was urged upon him by the delega- 
tions from his own, as well as other States. In the course of 
the same year, a deficiency was discovered in the State treasury, 
only a few days before the semi-annual interest on the State 
debt became due — but Governor Chase's energetic action com- 
pelled the resignation of the State Treasurer, who had concealed 
the deficiency, secured a thorough investigation, and effected 
such a judicious arrangement as protected the credit of the 
State, and averted what would otherwise have been a serious 
pecuniary loss. 

At the close of his first gubernatorial term, the Eepublicans 
insisted upon his accepting a re-nomination, which was carried 
by acclamation, and he was re-elected after a spirited canvass. In 
his annual message for 1858, he made an elaborate exposition of 
the financial condition of Ohio, recommending, also, semi-annual 
taxation, a greater stringency in provisions for the security of 
the State treasury, and proper appropriations for the establish- 
ment of benevolent institutions, especially for the Reform 
School — all of Avhich suggestions met with the approval of the 



SALMON PORTLAND CHASE. 189 

Legislature, and laws were passed in accordance therewitli. In 
the beginning of 1860, he was again chosen to the United 
States Senate, from Ohio. 

Upon the secession of South Carolina, in December, 1860, 
Mr. Chase urged upon General Scott, bj letter, the necessity of 
taking active measures to secure the public property, assuring 
him that the country would fully endorse such action. But 
timid counsels prevailed. Again, in February, 1861, Mr. Chase 
represented Ohio at the Conference of the States, held at Wash- 
ington, by invitation of Virginia, and there he stood boldly out 
as an uncompromising opponent of any purchase of peace by 
undue concessions to the South. Meanwhile, when threats were 
made that Mr. Lincoln should never be inaugurated, unless the 
South received the concessions it demanded from the North, Mr. 
Chase replied, " Inauguration first, adjustment afterwards," 
words which, caught up and used as a popular motto, had no 
small influence. 

On the -Ith of March, 1861, he took a seat in the Senate. Two 
days afterwards, however, he yielded to a very general and 
pressing demand, on the part of personal and political friends, 
(as well as some who, up to that time, had not been considered 
as either), and resigned his seat in the Senate to accept the Sec- 
retaryship of the Treasury, which had been tendered him by 
President Lincoln. Immediately after the organization of the 
Cabinet, and when the most important topic under discussion 
was, wliat should be the policy of the Government towards the 
seceded Slates, Mr. Chase's influence was strongly felt in the 
national councils. When hostilities commenced at Sumter, the 
Secretary urged upon General Scott the propriety of occupying 
Manassas, which, had it been done, would have compelled the 
evacuation of Harper's Ferry and the Shenandoah valley by 
the rebels, and would have materially altered the character of 



190 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

the opening campaign of tlie war. To Mr. Chase's suggestion, 
also, Yvfus due the call, promulgated in May, 1801, for 65,000 
volanteers, to take the place of the 75,000 first called for; 
and to him the President committed, with the consent of the 
Secretary of War, the preparation of the necessary orders — 
since known as Nos. 15 and 16 — the one for the enlistment of 
volunteers and the other for regular regiments. The object 
which Mr. Chase had in view was the establishment of a regular 
system — which had not hitherto existed — in conformity with 
which all new enlistments should be made, and in this important 
work he was assisted by Colonel Thomas, Major McDowell and 
Captain Franklin. During the trying period, in the early part 
of the war, when great efforts were made to precipitate Missouri, 
Kentucky and Tennessee into rebellion, Mr. Lincoln committed 
to his Secretary of the Treasury the principal charge of what- 
ever related to the conservation and protection of the interests 
of the Government in those States. He obtained for Rousseau, 
of Kentucky, his colonel's commission, and gave him his order 
for the raising of twenty companies. He also drew most of the 
orders under which Nelson acted, and furnished him with the 
means of defraying his expenses for the expedition into the 
interior of Kentucky, and the establishment of Camp Dick 
Robinson — movements which saved that State from secession. 
He was the honored confidant and adviser of General Cameron, 
while Secretary of "War, especially in relation to western border- 
state matters, slavery, and the employment of colored troops ; 
and it was at his suggestion that General Butler was directed by 
the Secretary of War to refrain from surrendering alleged fugi- 
tives from service to alleged masters, and to employ them under 
such organization and in such occupations as circumstances 
might suggest or require. It was, however, in the discharge of 
his legitimate duties, as Secretary of the Treasury, that Mr. 



SALMON PORTLAND CHASE. 191 

Chase achieved his greatest success. The treasury, at the time 
when he assumed its charge, was nearly bankrupt. He, there- 
fore, immediately proceeded to negotiate a loan. On the 22d of 
March, 1861, he issued proposals for his first loan of $8,000,000 
on six per cent, bonds, redeemable at the end of twenty years. 
The bids were opened April 2d, and amounted to $27,182,000, 
at rates varying from eighty -five for one Imn d to par. All 
bids below ninety-four were promptly rejected by the Secretary, 
who determined to let the country know at the outset that bonds 
of the United States were not to be sacrificed in the market, 
and that the national credit was not so impaired as to be at the 
mercy of brokers and capitalists. The disappointed bidders 
winced at this decision, but its effect upon the country at large 
V. as certainly healthy. 

Continuing to effect loans under existing laws, he borrowed, 
on the 11th of April, $4,901,000, on two years treasury notes, at a 
small premium ; on 25th of May, $7,310,000, on twenty years 
bonds, at from eighty-five to ninety-eight, declining all bids 
below ninety -five ; and on two years treasury notes, $1,68-1,000 
at par, all of which loans, considering the situation of the coun- 
try, were remarkable successes. Congress, on its assembling in 
July, 1861, authorized a national loan, under which act, and the 
acts amending it, he took measures to secure the funds needed 
to carry on the war. The result of a full and frank conference 
with the representatives of the banks of Boston, Philadelphia 
and Kew York, at the latter city, was an agreement, on the part 
of the banks, to unite as associates in an advance to Government 
of $50,000,000 ; while he, on his part, agreed to appeal to the 
people for subscriptions to a national loan, on three years notes, 
bearing seven-thirty per cent, interest, and convertible into 
twenty years bonds bearing six per cent., the proceeds of which 
subscriptions should be paid over to the banks, in satisfaction 



192 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

of their advances, so far as tliey would go ; the deficiency, if 
any, to be made good in seven-thirty notes. By this and a sub- 
sequent loan, made on nearly the same terms, the Government 
obtained $100,000,000 at a rate of interest only one and three- 
tenths of one per cent, higher than the ordinary rate of six per 
cent., and that for three years only. The banks now declining to 
advance another $50,000,000 for the seven-thirty notes, through 
the efforts of the Secretary, a seven per cent, loan was negotiated 
on the 16th of November, but trouble resulted from the oppo- 
sition of many of the banks to the further issue of United States 
notes as legal tender, in distinction to their own local issues, and 
the Secretary now applied the remedy to this state of afiairs by 
uniting his whole influence to those who desired the United 
States notes made a legal tender, and by joining them, decided 
the success of that measure, which he had previously urged upon 
Congress. 

It was, however, only by the most indomitable perseverance 
that he was enabled, after several defeats and long delay, to 
secure the passage of the National Banking Act, providing for 
a system of national banks, based upon government securities. 
This system, which embraces the best features of the New York 
Free Banking System, together Avith certain additions protec- 
tive of the rights both of the bill-holder and depositor, has 
proved most successful, and, although at first vehemently 
opposed by some of the State and local banks, has now fairly 
triumphed over all opposition. In the negotiation of these 
loans, Mr. Chase secured the services of Mr. Jay Cooke, an emi- 
nent financier of Philadelphia, as general agent, who by his 
numerous agencies, and a wholesale and ingenious system of 
•advertising, gave the widest possible publicity to the loan, and 
secured for it the full fiivor of the community throughout the 
United States. By January 1st, 186-1, five hundred millions of 



SALMON PORTLAND CHASE. 193 

tlie loan (5-20 bonds) was taken up, and tlie subscriptions were in 
excess, by nearly fourteen millions, of the amount authorized. 
The full measure of the Secretary's comprehensive plans was 
insured by the enactment, in ISG-i, of tax laws, in accordance 
with his repeated suggestions since 1861, by which the revenue 
to the government was largely increased, and by the aid of 
which future secretaries of the treasury will be enabled to 
"weather" any financial pressure. This great work accom- 
plished, he resigned his secretaryship, June oO, 1864. 

The great importance and beneficial results of Mr. Chase's 
financial measures, adopted as they were in the heat and pres- 
sure of the most stupendous war of modern times, and initiated 
with a bankrupt treasury, and notice in advance from the great 
financial powers of Europe, that we " need not expect any assist- 
ance from them," render it desirable that they should be 
somewhat better understood than they have been, and we there- 
fore gladly avail ourselves of the following explanations of them, 
recently put forth, it is understood, with his own sanction. 

The objects which he had in view, were : 

"I. To establisb satisfactory relations between the public 
credit and the productive industry of the country — in other 
v/ords, to obtain supplies. The suspension of the banks put an 
end to the first and most obvious resort, loans of gold, and made 
new methods indispensable. Then the secretary resorted to 
legal tender notes, made them a currency, and borrowed them 
as cash. The patriotism of the people came in aid of the labors 
of the treasury and the legislation of Congress, and the first 
great object was made secure. 

" II. To provide against disastrous results on a return of 
peace. This could only be done by providing a national cur- 
renc3^ Thei'c were about 1,500 State banks in existence which 
wanted to make their own paper the currency of the country 
This the secretary resisted, and confined his loans to greenbacks; 
but he did not drive out their currency, nor indeed did he think 
13 



194 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

it exactly honest to so deprive them of it,' without giving any 
equivalent. He preferred to neutralize their opposition to a 
national currency and make them allies as far as possible, instead 
of enemies. In his endeavors to secure such results, he proposed 
the uatioual banking system, and before he left the Department 
its success was assured. 

"The national banks were certain to be useful in many 
ways, but the secretary's main object was the establishment of a 
national currency. This saved us from panic and revulsion 
at the end of the war, and is of inestimable value to men of 
labor and men of business — indeed, to every class. 

" III. The third division of his labor was to provide a fund- 
ing system. It was unavoidable during the rebellion that 
every means of credit should be used. He borrowed money 
every way he could at reasonable rates. The form that suited 
one lender did not suit another ; and the army and navy needed 
every dollar that could be raised in any form. Hence tem- 
porary loans, certificates of deposit, certificates of indebtedness, 
7.30 notes, compound interest notes, treasury notes payable 
after one and two years, etc. 

" But it was necessary to have funding hems, into which all 
these temporary loaJis could be idtwiatehj merged. To this end 
the secretary established the 5-20 loan and the 10-40 loan. His 
Relief was that after the $514,000,000 of the 5-20 loan had been 
taken, the additional amounts needed could be obtained by the 
10-40 loan and the temporary loans; but the secretary was 
ready to resort to the 5-20s in case of emergency. He did get 
$73,000,000 in the 10-40 loan, and his successors got about 
$120,000,000 more, at par. 

" It is easy to see how Mr. Chase's funding system worked, 
by examining the last statement of the public debt. The condi- 
tion is something like this: $1,200,000,000 5-20s; $200,000,000 
10-40s; $200,000,000 81s payable now after fourteen years, 
which can then easily be put into 10-40s ; other loans (all tem- 
porary), say $500,000,000, of which three fourths consist of 
7.30S; convertible, and certain to be converted into 10-40s ; and 
say $400,000,000 greenbacks, including fractional currency, 



SALMON PORTLAND CHASE. 195 

making tlie debt of $2,500,000,000. So, it may be seen, the 
whole debt except '81s is already funded, or sure to be funded 
in 5-20 six per cents, or 10-40 five per cents." 

It has been well said of j\[r. Chase's conduct in this hazardous 
and laborious position, that " the nerv ■ he displayed, the breadth 
of intellect he manifested, the ardor of his patriotism, and the 
wonders wrought by his financial wisdom and skill throughout 
tlie first three years of the rebellion, are so recent and so well 
remembered, and live so freshly in the hearts of his grateful 
countrymen, as to render unnecessary any thing more than this 
simple reference. His enduring fame is built on his measures ; 
his best eulogy is written in his acts. He vindicated the wisdom 
of the President's choice ; he both justified and rewarded the 
confidence of the people." It is not strange, therefore, that 
President Lincoln, with strengthened confidence in Mr. Chase's 
jDatriotism, ability, and sound judgment, tendered to him, in 
186-1, the highest judicial seat of the nation, which had become 
vacant by the death of its venerable incumbent, Eoger S. Taney. 
The nomination of Mr. Chase as Chief Justice, by the Execu- 
tive, on the 6th of December, 186-1, was promptly confirmed by 
the Senate, and on the 13th of the same month he took his seat 
upon the bench, " having previously," as the records state, ' on 
the same day taken the oath of allegiance, in the room of the 
judges, and the oath of of&ce, in open court, at his place upon 
the bench, in the presence of a large number of ladies and gen- 
tlemen, who had assembled to witness a ceremony which, m thia 
nation, had taken place but once in sixty-three years preceding.'^ 
Shortly after his assumption of the duties of this high position, 
the Chief Justice made an extended tour throughout the recently 
conquered rebel States — passing down the Atlantic coast and up 
the Mississippi river — with the purpose of gaining a personal 
knowledge of the actual condition of the people. During thia 



196 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

trip, he embraced every opportunity of conversing unreservedly 
with all, botb white and black, who chose to avail themselves 
of the knowledge of his presence, and the information thus 
obtained was placed at the public service in his correspondence 
with the President and others, while his suggestions of measures 
necessary and expedient to the* proper accomplishment of peace 
and reconstruction, order and justice, were characterized by a 
comprehensiveness of view and a noble spirit of Christian 
patriotism eminently creditable to his head and heart. 

Few public men of his years, in this country, possess minds 
better stored with varied treasures of knowledge, or bear the 
evidoDce of severer mental discipline than Mr. Chase. To an 
intellect at once comprehensive, discriminating and retentive, 
he adds the graces of learning and the power of logic; and 
whatever subject he treats, is handled with keen insight, 
breadth of view, thoroughness of reflection, and strength of 
reasoning. His whole career as a statesman and jurist, and all 
his public efforts, in popular addresses, newspaper writings, 
occasional lectures, and contributions to periodical literature, 
show the same breadth of premise, exactness of statement, 
logical sequence, completeness of consideration, and power of 
conclusion, from which we are justified in hojDing and expecting 
mucji in his present exalted position, where his ruling and 
decisions have always been characterized by their adherence to 
the great fundamental principles of equity on which all human 
law is professedly based. His is no narrow mind to run only 
in the rut of precedents, and be constantly hampered by the chi- 
caner}' of rigid constructionists. He goes naturally to the foun- 
dation principles, and while he has no superior, either in legal 
learning and acumen or in wide and generous culture, upon the 
bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, he is lesa 



SALMON PORTLAND CHASE. 197 

likely perhaps than any of them to base an opinion on previous 
decisions cither there or in the English courts. 

In the trial of Andrew Johnson under the impeachment of 
the House of Kepresentativcs, Chief Justice Chase was, by the 
Constitution, the presiding officer of the High Court of Impeach- 
ment. His course there was marked by dignity and ability 
The position was a difficult and trying one, and his powers (it 
being the first instance of such presidency since the adoption 
of the Constitution) were not clearly defined ; but he acquitted 
himself admirably in it. 

In person Mr, Chase presents the most imposing appearance 
of any man in public life in this country. He is over six feet 
in height, portly and well proportioned, with handsome features, 
and a grand, massive head. Few men possess so much real 
dignity and grace of manner. But with it all, he is utterly 
incapable of the arts of the demagogue, or of any effort to win 
popularity, by "bending the supple hinges of the knee, that 
thrift may follow fawning." He entered upon his office of 
Secretary of the Treasury with a property of about one 
hundred thousand dollars ; he left it three years later, after 
managing the immense finances of the nation in war time, 
materially poorer than when he assumed office. No man who 
knew him could doubt, for an instant, his unflinching integrity 
and honesty. 

Chief Justice Chase has often been mentioned as a candidate 
for the presidency, and it has been said by political writers 
that he was anxious for the position. If this were the case, it 
would not be to his discredit, so long as the means he used 
to accomplish his desire were honorable and just, and it 
is not in his nature to use any other — but there is not any- 
Avhere the slightest authentic evidence that he has even sought 
or desired this areat office. If he has, no man could have 



198 MEX OF OUK DAT. 

better kept his secret, for not to his most intimate friends has 
he ever breathed this aspiration, nor has he swerved a hair's 
breadth from the line of duty, to influence any man to support 
him. Like Henry Clay, he " would rather be right, than be 
President." In a recent conversation with his friend, Mr. W. 
N. Hudson of the Cleveland Leader, when allusion was made 
to an absurd report just then prevalent, that the Democrats 
thought of nominating him to the Presidency, Mr. Chase said 
with great earnestness, "I wish that all men of all parties 
would leave my name alone in connection with a presidential 
nomination. I do not seek the presidency." He then went on 
to say, that as a justice of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, he had necessarily to abandon party politics. When he 
took his seat on that bench, he assumed an obligation, recog- 
nized in his oath, but anterior and superior to it, to do impar- 
tial justice under the Constitution and laws of the United 
States. He could not be a party judge, or allow himself to 
be swayed by partisan feeling, Avithout violating that oath. 
And he regretted that newspapers of both parties had, without 
cause or warrant, connected some of his recent actions with 
party or perverse feeling. 

A man thus scrupulous of the obligations of his oath, and 
influenced by so nice and delicate a sentiment of honor, might 
safely be trusted with the nation's highest place of honor, but 
is too great to be likely to fill it. 




Engravkd hy a B Walteti. PitiL" 



EDWIN M. STANTON, 

SECRETARY OF WAR. 




HE time has not come, and will not, for years, when an 
impartial and satisfactory life of Mr. Stanton can be 
^ written. The hostilities aroused by his rough, impul- 
sive, and positive action — the utter carelessness of the 
man in regard to his own reputation — the partial and im- 
perfect knowledge of the motives which led to many of his 
apparently arbitrary measures, and his own constant and per- 
sistent refusal to make any explanations, or give any informa- 
tion which might influence the world's judgment of him — all 
have conspired to make any thing like an adequate biography 
of him impossible, until time shall have mitigated the bitter- 
ness which many feel toward him, and the great secrets, which 
he now keeps so safely, shall be brought lo the light. Yet we 
can give some account of his earlier history, and a brief sum- 
mary of the herculean labors which, for three years, made him 
the hardest-worked official who ever occupied a seat in the 
cabinet. 

Mr. Stanton comes of a Quaker stock. His ancestors were 
among the early settlers of Rhode Island, and his great grand- 
father migrated, not far from 1750, to North Carolina. The 

grandparents of the future secretarv, Benjamin and Abigail 

199 



200 MEN OF OUK DAY. 

(Macy) Stanton, resided for many years near Beaufort, North 
Carolina, and were members of the society of Friends. Benja- 
min died in the last decade of the eighteenth century ; and in 
his will requested that all the poor black people that ever be- 
longed to him, should be entirely free whenever the laws of 
the land would allow it — and until that time, charged his ex- 
ecutors to act as their guardians, to protect them, and see that 
they should not be deprived of their right, or any way mis- 
used." 

About the year 1800, the widow of Benjamin, Abigail Stan- 
ton, removed with her large family to Ohio. One of her sons, 
David Stanton, then a stout lad, acquired an education, studied 
medicine, married Miss Lucy Norman, the daughter of a 
wealthy planter of Culpeper county, Yirginia, and settled in 
the then new and thriving village of Steubenville, Ohio, as a 
physician. Here, in December, 1815, his eldest child, Edwin 
M. Stanton, was born. 

The boy possessed great energy, vitality, and resolution, and 

was beyond his years in intelligence. At the age of thirteen, 

he became a clerk in the bookstore of James Turnbull, in 

Steubenville. Three years later, in 1831, he became a student 

in Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, where he remained for two 

years or more. He then obtained employment, for a time, as a 

clerk, in a bookstore of his former master at Columbus. His 

ft 
father having deceased, he commenced the study of law in the 

of&ce of his guardian, Daniel L. Collier, in Steubenville, early 
in 1834, and under his wition, and that of Hon. Benjamin Tap- 
pan, an eminent jurist, and subsequently U. S. Senator from 
Ohio, he acquired a very competent knowledge of the law ; 
and in 1836, at the age of twenty-one, was admitted to the bar. 
^ He commenced the practice of the law at Cadiz, Harrison 
•30unty, Ohio, and was very soon elected prosecuting attorney 



f 



'.. 4?'- 



EDWIN M. STANTON. 201 

of the county. He very speedily acquired a liigli reputation, 
and a large practice in his profession, especially in the circuit 
courts. About 1839, he removed to Steubenville, where he 
was for a time the partner of his old preceptor, lion. Benjamin 
Tappan. In 1842, he was elected, by the General Assembly 
of Ohio, reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court, and 
in that capacity prepared volumes 11, 12, and 13, of the Ohio 
State Eeports, He had by this time a very high position at 
the Ohio bar, being regarded as one of the ablest lawyers of 
the State in all questions of land litlcs and commercial law. 
He had also some reputation as a political leader in his county 
and State. His affiliations were with the Democratic party. 
In 18-17, he formed a partnership with Hon. Charles Shaler and 
Theodore Umbstratter, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and, though 
retaining an office in Steubenville, began to devote his atten- 
tion chiefly to cases before the courts of Pennsylvania and the 
United States District, Circuit, and Suj^reme courts. He was 
retained in most of the important cases, and regarded as the 
ablest counsel of that region. There was an immense power 
of work in the man, as well as remarkable quickness of per- 
ception — an almost feminine intuition, which enabled him to 
leap to results, while others were carefully and slowly studying 
out the first steps. While resident at Pittsburg, he was en- 
gaged, among other important suits, as counsel for the railroad 
company in the great Erie war cases, and for the State of Penn- 
sylvania in the Wheeling Bridge case. In the latter part of 
1856, his practice in the Supreme Court of the United States 
had become so large and lucrative, that he found himself com- 
elled to remove to Washington to do full justice to it. 
In 1858, he went to California, as special counsel for the 
Government in certain land cases, involving interests of great P* 
magnitude, where he was called to defend the title of the 



202 MEN OF OUR DAT. 

American against the Mexican grantees. His rranagement of 
these cases was successful, and he received enormous fees foi 
his services. Soon after his return, in 1859, he was employed 
as one of the counsel in the great Manney and McCormick 
reaper case, which was to be tried at Cincinnati ; and here, for 
the first time, met Mr. Lincoln, who was engaged on the same 
side of the case. In December, 1860, while still engaged in a 
later stage of the reaper trial, at Cincinnati, he was nominated 
by Mr. Buchanan to the office of Attorney-General, which 
Mr. Black had just vacated to assume that of Secretary of 
State, after the resignation of General Cass. He accepted the 
position, though probably conscious, in part, of its difficulties. 
Cobb and Floyd had resigned. Black and Thomas were of 
doubtful loyalty, and, beside Judge Holt, General Dix, and 
himself, there was nobody in the cabinet who cared whether 
the nation were shipwrecked or not. Of the three loyal mem- 
bers of the cabinet, Mr. Stanton was by far the most outspoken 
and decided. He protested against every doubtful measure, 
urged on Buchanan the necessity of reinforcing and supplying 
the garrison of Fort Sumter, and by his untiring zeal, his ad- 
ministrative ability, and his sturdy loyalty, prevented the 
closing months of Mr. Buchanan's administration from going 
out in utter darkness. 

At the expiration of Mr. Buchanan's term of administration, 
Mr. Stanton resumed the practice of his profession, but con- 
tinued his zeal and interest in the national cause. 

On the 11th of January, 1862, Secretary Cameron having 
resigned his office of Secretary of "War, Mr. Stanton was nomi- 
nated by the President, and on the 13th of the game month 
Was confirmed by the Senate, for that office. Of this appoint- 
l^ment Judge Holt, Postmaster General at the close of Mr. 
Buchii nan's administration, and subsequently Judge Advcoato 



EDWIN M. STANTON. 203 

General, wrote to Lieutenant Governor Stanton of Ohio, " it ia 
an immense stride in the direction of the suppression of the 
rebellion. . . . The rejoicing of the people over his appointment 
would have been far greater did they* know the courage, 
loyalty, and genius of the new secretary, as displayed in the 
intensely tragic struggles that marked the closing days of the 
Buchanan administration. He is a great man, morally and in- 
tellectually — a patriot. . . . All that man can do, will, in his 
present position, be done to deliver our poor bkeding country 
from the bayonets of traitors." The history of Mr. Stanton's 
administration of the War Department has more than verified 
Judge Holt's high encomiums. 

He entered upon his duties with a vigor and energy which 
has never flagged. The loose expenditures of the Department 
and the taint of corruption which had pervaded its financial 
management, rather from the easy temper of Mr. Stanton's pre- 
decessor than from any personally dishonest tendencies, were 
reformed. Strictly honest in money matters himself, Secretary 
Stanton pursued most unrelentingly every man whom he had 
reason to suspect of fraud. The military organization and the 
bureaus of the Department, so far as they came under his control, 
were systematized, simplified, and placed on a footing of greater 
efficiency ; the communication with the President was constant ; 
and impetuous as the Secretary was, and apt at times to act 
when he was sure he was right, on his own authority alone, 
his arm was ever ready to support the President, and his unflinch- 
ing loyalty was proof against every test. Untiring in his energy 
and more fond of work than most men are of pleasure, he 
exacted of his subordinates labors as far as possible commen- 
surate with his own ; he never asked them to do more — but in 
these severe labors he broke down one assistant secretary after 
another, till there was a saying common in Washington, when 



204 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

a new assistant secretary Avas appointed, that such a man "had 
received his death warrant." No man was more ready or 
happy to acknowledge victories, or thank the successful leader 
than he ; and if at *times he became impatient at the slow 
notion of dilatory generals, and was in a few instances unjust 
in his condemnation of their delays, it was due to his eager 
loyalty and his impetuous nature, which brooked no obstacles 
and tolerated no unnecessary hindrances in the accomplishment 
of the object he had so much at heart. Over one thousand 
general orders, many of them requiring immense labor and 
painstaking in their preparation, were issued from his Depart- 
ment during the war, and the vast and constantly increasing 
expenditure of the Department, which in the last year of the war, 
was keeping a force of more than a million of men in the field, 
was of itself sufficient to test the energies of the ablest financier. 

He had the reputation of being very brusque in his manners ; 
and at times his treatment of army officers of high rank was 
indefensible ; but to the poor, to the defenceless, and the weak, 
he was gentle and tender as a woman ; towards offenders, either 
military or civil, he was relentless as death, and often appa- 
rently vindictive in his punishments, but this vindictiveness was 
rarely manifested, except to those whom he believed to have 
been guilty of defrauding the nation in its hour of greatest need. 
This to him was an unpardonable sin. 

It was with reference to some strong-willed action of Mr. 
Stanton in contravention of his wishes, that Mr. Lincoln, 
in reply to a personal application for assistance, made the 
playful remark^ so often quoted, that he (Lincoln) had very little 
influence with this Administration. 

Yet admitting all his faults and foibles, the fact remains 
that Mr. Stanton was one of the ablest if not the ablest war 
minister of modern times. Napoleon's expression in regard to 



EDWIN M. STANTON. 205 

Carnot, that he " organized victory," has been often applied to 
Mr. Stanton, and not unjustly; but he was an abler war minis- 
ter than Carnot, far abler than the younger Pitt, to whom he 
has often also been compared. We should incline rather to 
find his parallel in Cavour, the great Italian, whose genius, 
under circumstances very similar, created armies and sent a 
thrill of patriotic life through the hearts of a people so long 
oppressed and down-trodden, as the masses of the Italian 
peninsula. There were, too, many points of resemblance in 
the power of organization, the imperious will, and the forcible 
moulding of the nation to his purposes, to the great Prussian 
statesman. Yon Bismarck. 

After the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Stanton naturally 
took the lead among the members of the cabinet in brinoino- 
the assassins to justice, and the war to a complete conclusion. 
Mr. Johnson could not well dismiss him from the cabinet, but 
as the new President began to diverge more and more from the 
principles of the party which elected him to the vice-presidency 
it soon became evident that between him and the war minister 
there was no friendship, bui only an armed neutrality. Both 
had formerly been membeis of the Democratic party, but while 
Johnson was evidently hungering for the flesh pots of Egypt, 
and desirous of returning to his old allegiance, Stanton had seen 
too clearly the opposition of his old party to ihe war, and the 
principles for which he had so manfully contended, to desire to 
hold farther communion with them. He supported with all the 
force of his character the following measures, all of which the 
President opposed and vetoed : the Freedmen's Bureau bill • 
'the Civil Eights bill; the bill granting suffrage without distinc- 
tion of color in the District of Columbia ; the bill admitting 
Colorado as a State ; and, generally, the reconstruction acts of 
Congress. It was evident that it was only a question of time, 



206 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

as to when M:r. Jolinson could most conveniently rid himself 
of this secretary, whom he feared as much as he hated, and 
hated as much as he feared. He tried slights, but they were 
lost upon the secretary ; when he " swung round the circle" he 
purposely avoided inviting Mr, Stanton to accompany him; but 
this was a relief to the secretary ; he held as little and as formal 
communication with him as possible, and to this Mr, Stanton 
made no objection. Meantime, Congress, aware of the import- 
ance of retaining him in office, to foil and thwart Mr. Johnson's 
schemes for defeating their reconstruction measures, passed the 
Tenure of Office bill, in which especial provision was made for 
his retention in the War Department, 

At length, on the 5th of August, 1867, Mr. Johnson mustered 
sufficient courage to send a note to Mr. Stanton requesting him 
to resign upon the alleged ground of public considerations of a 
high character, to which the secretary replied that " public con- 
siderations of a high character, which alone had induced him 
to remain at the head of this Department, constrained him not 
to resign before the next meeting of Congress." On the 13th 
of August, Mr. Johnson notified Mr, Stanton that he had sus- 
pended him from office, and appointed General Grant Secretary 
ad interim. Mr, Stanton surrendered the office to General Grant 
under protest, though, as was fully understood, with no personal 
feeling toward the general in the matter. On the assembling 
of Congress in November, 1867, they promptly demanded, of 
the President, an account of the measures he had taken in sus- 
pending Secretary Stanton from office. The reply came tardily, 
and offered but little real justification of his proceeding. The 
Senate, after fair deliberation, decided that the suspension was 
not justifiable, and that the secretary must be reinstated. General 
Grant promptly surrendered the office to him on the 13th of 
January, 1868, greatly to Mr. Johnson's vexation and chagrin 



EDWIN M. STANTON. 207 

and an angry correspondence between him and the general waa 
the result. Secretary Stanton took charge of the Department, 
but the President would hold no communication with him, and 
endeavored to prevent General Grant from issuing his orders 
through him, but in vain. At length, on the 21st of February, 
President Johnson notified Mr. Stanton that he had removed 
him from office, and appointed General Lorenzo Thomas 
(adjutant-general of the army) Secretary ad interim^ with orders 
to take possession of the office. Mr. Stanton refused to surren- 
der it, and General Thomas was arrested on the charge of 
violating the Tenure of Office act, but was discharged on his 
own recognizance. The violation of this act by Mr, Johnson 
filled up the cup of his offences against Congress, and he was 
promptly impeached by the House of Eepresentatives, tried by 
the Senate, and while the impeachment articles w^ere pending, 
he nominated Thomas Ewing, Sr., a venerable politician of Ohio, 
in his eightieth year, as Secretary of War, in place of Stanton, 
removed, but the Senate took no notice of the nominatiju. 
Secretary Stanton remained in office during the impeachment 
trial, but it was understood that he would decline continuing in 
that i:osition after Mr. Johnson's conviction. 



WILLIAy HENRY SEWARD. 



^Itjl ILLI AM HENRY SEWARD, the sou of Dr. Samuel 
*^1 1 1 ^' S^^^^^^^j f"^^ seventeen years a county judge, and a 
*{f)f^ man of more than ordinary business ability and [ tract ical 
''' ^ philanthropy, was born at Florida, Orange county, New 
York, on the 16th of May, 1801. Manifesting from childhood 
an earnest love of knowledge and taste for study, he was sent, 
when nine years old, to Farmers' Hall Academy, at Goshen, in 
his native county. Rapidly advancing in his studies there, and 
at an academy afterwards established in his native town, he was 
fully prepared, at the age of fifteen, to enter college. Matricu- 
lating, as a sophomore, at Union College, in 1816, he manifested 
a peculiar aptitude for rhetoric, moral philosophy and the 
classics. In 1810, in his senior year, he spent some six months 
in teaching at the South, and. returning to college, graduated 
with high honors; being one of the three commencement ora- 
tors chosen by the college society, to which he belonged. The 
subject he selected was, " The Integrity of the American Union." 
Entering, soon after his graduation, the oiUcc of John Anthon, 
of New York city, he commenced the study of law, continuing 
and completing his jpreparation with John Duer and Ogdcn 
Hoffman, of Goshen, New York, with tlie latter of whom he 
became associated in practice. In January, 1822, he was admit- 
ted to the bar, and removing to Auburn, New Ycrk, formed a 
208 



WILLIAM IIEXRY SEWARD, 20^ 

partnership with Judge John Miller, of that place, whose young- 
est daughter became his wife iu 1824. As a lawyer, his origi- 
nality of thought and action, as well as his great industry, soon 
brouglit him an extensive and lucrative practice. Politics also 
claimed much of his attention, and, as was liatural, he folloAved 
in the political footsteps of his father, who was a prominent 
Jefi'ersonian Republican. In October, 1824, despite his youth, 
he was chosen to draw up the Address to the People of the Re- 
publican Convention of Cayuga county, whicli document was an 
exposure of the origin and designs of the Albany Regency. In 
1827, he contributed largely, by his eloquent speeches, to the 
success of the popular movement in behalf of the Greeks, then 
struggling for their freedom. In 1828, he presided with distin- 
guished ability over a very large convention of young men 
favorable to the election of John Quincy Adams to the presi- 
dency, held at Utica, New York, and the same ^year declined a 
profl'ered nomination to Congress. When the National Repub- 
lican party was dissolved by Jackson's election as President, Mr. 
Seward fraternized with the Anti-Masonic organization, the only 
opposition then existing to the Albany Regency, and from that 
party accepted, in 1830, a nomination to the State Senate. He 
was elected by a majority of two thousand, in a district (the 
seventh) Avhich had given a large majority the other way in the 
previous year. Scarcely thirty years old, he entered the Senate 
as the youngest member who had ever attained that honor, and 
found himself, politically, in a small minority, nt a time when 
party lines were sharply defined. Yet he fearlessly entered the 
lists, throwing down the gauntlet to the Jackson power and the 
Albany Regency, taking part in all debates advocating the 
claims of abolition of imprisonment for debt, the amelioration of 
prison discipline, opposition to corporate monopolies, the exten- 
sion of the popular franchise, the common-school system, the 
14 



210 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

Erie railroad and internal improvements, etc. His maiden 
speech was on a militia bill, in which he proposed, substantially, 
the same system of volunteer uniform companies as that at 
present in use in New York State ; and during the second session 
of his term he delivered a speech in advocacy of a national 
bank, which, with others of similar import, gave rise (by con- 
centrating an opposition in the Senate) to what subsequently 
developed as the Whig party. In the summer of 1833, during 
the recess of the Senate, Mr. Seward made a hurried visit to 
Europe, adding largely to his reputation by the letters which he 
wrote home, and which were published in the Albany "Evening 
Journal." In September, 183-i, he was nominated for governor 
by the Whig State Convention, against William L. Marcj', but 
■was defeated, although running ahead of his ticket in every 
county. Eesuming his practice, Mr. Seward, in 1836, settled in 
Chautauqua county, as the agent for the Holland Land Com- 
pany ; and, in 1838, was again nominated by the Whigs, and 
elected governor by ten thousand majority. In 1810, he Avas 
re-elected. During his administration occurred the celebrated 
anti-rent difficulties; the Erie canal was enlarged; the State 
lunatic asylum was founded ; imprisonment for debt, and every 
vestige of slavery were eradicated from the statute-books ; im- 
portant reforms were effected in elections, in prison discipline, 
in bank laws, and in legal courts. One of the most important 
events of his administration was the controversy with the Gov- 
ernors of Virginia and Georgia, in which the latter claimed h'ora 
him the rendition of certain colored sailors, charged with having 
abducted slaves from said States. Governor Seward refused 
compliance, and argued the case with a firmness and ability 
which attracted the attention of the \vhole country; and when 
his course was denounced by the Democrats, after their accession 
to power, and he was requested to transmit their resolutions to 



WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD. 21 L 

the Governor of Virginia, he declined to do so — remaining 
inflexible, despite the retaliatory measures threatened by the 
State of Virginia against the commerce of New York. A 
similar instance of firmness and sagacity was manifested by him, 
in his refusal to surrender, to the British Government, Alexander 
McLeod, charged with burning the steamer Caroline, during 
the Canadian rebellion of 1837, a refusal in which he persisted, 
in spite of the British minister's threats of hostilities, the advice 
of President Tyler's administration, and the strong intercession 
of many of his own political friends. In January, 1843, Mr. 
Seward, declining another nomination, resumed the practice of 
law, devoting himself, for the ensuing six years, assiduously to 
business, attaining a large practice in the highest State courts, 
and — owing to a particular aptitude for mechanical science — 
having a considerable number of patent-cases, which brought 
him into association with the best legal talent of the country. 
He also gave freely, not only his professional services but his 
means, in behalf of certain friendless unfortunates, whose cases 
and trials form some of the most interesting records of criminal 
jurisprudence. Conspicuous among these was the case of the 
insane negro Freeman, the murderer of the Van Nest family, in 
Orange county. New York, a case which, in spite of derision, 
obloquy and reproach, Mr. Seward never forsook, until the 
death of his client, " caused by the disease of the brain, satisfied 
even the most prejudiced, that his course had been as wise 
as it confessedly was humane and generous." He also gratui- 
tously defended, before the United States Supreme Court, in 
1847, the case of John Van Zandt, charged with aiding fugitive 
slaves to escape from Kentucky; his argument in the case 
being pronounced "a masterly exposition of the inhumanity 
and unconstitutionality of the Fugitive Slave act." 

Tn 1851, he defended, at Detroit, fifty men on trial for con- 



212 M£X OF OCR DAT. 

spiracy, who could find but one lawyer in Michigan courageous 
•enough to undertake their case. It was a four month's trial, 
involving the examination of four hundred Avitnesses, and he 
secured the acquittal of thirty-eight of the number. Besides 
all this professional labor, Mr, Seward did good service in 
various political campaigns ; especially in 184-i, in favor of a 
tariff; against the annexation of Texas, and the Mexican War ; 
against disenfranchisement of foreign-born citizens, etc. In 
1846, he Avas largely instrumental in securing the calling of the 
convention for the revision of the Constitution of the State 
of New York, In September, IB-IT, he delivered, at New 
York, an address on the life and character of Daniel O'Connell, 
which was one of his finest efforts ; and in April, ISIS, he 
pronounced, before the Legislature of New York, a touching 
and felicitous eulogy on John Quincy Adams, When General 
Taylor Avas nominated for the presidency, in 1818, Mr, Seward 
became one of the prominent public speakers, canvassing New 
York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Massachusetts, making, as here- 
tofore, the great principles of human freedom the central topics 
of his speeches, and Avas everywhere greeted Avith the hearty and 
unanimous applause of his audience. Shortly after Taylor's 
election, Mr, SeAA^ard Avas elected to the Senate of the 
Thirty-first Congress, and soon became recognized as the 
foremost advocate of the administration policy — enjoying the 
intimacy and confidence of the President until his untimely 
decease. During the first session of this Congress, Mr, Seward 
took a prominent and very influential part in the contest Avhich 
resulted in the passage of the Compromise act, and it AA'as in 
the discussion of these measures that he used the phrase " the 
Higher LaAv," Avhich has achieved so great and wide-spread a 
signifi'^ance. Three years before, he had said, in the Van Zandt 
case, ** Congress had no poAver to inhibit any duty commanded 



WILLIAM HEXRY SEWARD. 213 

bj God on Mount Sinai, or by bis Son on tlie ]\rount of Olives," 
and now (March lltli, 1860), speaking of the admission of 
California, he said, " We hold no arbitrary authority over 
any thing, whether acquired lawfully, or seized by usurpation. 
The Constitution regulates our stewardship; the Constitution 
devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defence, to welfare, 
and to liberty. But there is a Higher Law than the Constitu- 
tion, which regulates our authority over the domain, and 
devotes it to the same noble purpose." In short. Senator 
Seward waged an " irrepressible conflict" against any compromise 
of the slavery question, a course of conduct which brought him 
not only into collision with the Democratic party, but also 
with Clay, Webster, Fillmore, and other prominent men of his 
own party. From this time party lines became more sharply 
drawn between the Pro-Slavery men and Abolitionists; and to the 
Southerner, "Bill Seward," as he was called, became an object 
of abuse, misrepresentation, and open contempt, in many cases, 
when they passed him on the street. But this effort to ostracise 
him was utterly futile. His rare abilities and elevated charac- 
ter made him proof against the scorn and derision of little 
minds ; he held the even tenor of his way, and on all great 
national questions he took a part in the debate, and even his 
enemies could not but listen in admiration of his statesmanlike 
views. The subjects of Public Lands; indemnities of French 
Spoliations ; Kossuth ; the survey of the Arctic and Pacific 
Oceans ; American AVhale Fisheries ; and American Steam 
Navigation ; were handled by him, in public debate, with a 
grasp of intellect and a force of eloquence worthy of his high 
reputation. During the Thirty-second Congress, Mr. Seward ad- 
vocated the Continental railroad, and opposed the removal of 
duties from railroad iron ; and, in the summer of 1353, after the 
adjonr'-'vent, ^ouud time, besides engb,ging in several important 



214 MEX OF OUE DAT. 

legal cases, to deliver an oration at the dedication of a univer 
sity, at Columbus, Ohio, on " The Destiny of America," and 
another before the American Institute, at New York, on " The 
True Basis of American Independence," both of which possess 
a value beyond the occasions Avhich elicited them. 

In the Thirty-third Congress, he introduced a bill for the con- 
struction of a Pacific railroad, another for establishing steam- 
mails between California, China, Japan, and the Sandwich 
Islands; besides measures for the modification of the Tariff, 
the Homestead Bill, Miss Dix's effort for the Eelief of the 
Insane, etc., etc. — all of which matters, however, gave place to 
the all-absorbing discussion of Senator Douglas's Nebraska bill, 
which, it is needless to say, met with all the persistent and 
/)0werful opposition which Mr. Seward could bring against it. 
The measure, however, was finally passed. In addition to the 
elaborate speeches made on this topic, Mr. Seward pronounced 
chaste and discriminating eulogies on Henry Clay and Daniel 
"Webster, and during the summer of this year (185-i) delivered 
the annual oration before the literary societies of Yale College 
on " The Physical, Moral, and Intellectual development of the 
American People ;" and at the commencement exercises, received 
the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. In October following, 
he made his celebrated and elaborate argument in the United 
States Circuit Court in the " McCormick Reaper case." 
During the second session of the Thirty-third Congress, Mr. 
Seward, in addition to his continued advocacy of all the leading 
measures of public improvement, strenuously opposed Senator 
Toucey's bill protecting government officers in the execution of 
the Fugitive Slave act, and gave his affirmative vote to a sub- 
stitute proposed during the debate, repealing the Fugitive 
Slave act of 1850. 

In Februar}', 1855, Mr.' Seward was re-elected to the Senate, 



"WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD. 215 

for the term of six years, notwitlistaiiding a most deterruineil 
opposition from the " Know Nothing" or American party, and 
the Democratic party. His election, which was everywhere 
considered as a triumph of the advocates of freedom, assumed 
a national interest ; and Mr. Seward was tendered public recep- 
tions at various places along his homeward route, after the ex- 
tra session of Congress, all of which, however, he respectfully 
declined. During the State canvass in the fall of 1855, he 
delivered at Albany, Auburn, and Buffalo, speeches in which 
the political issues of the times were sketched with a master's 
hand — and, having enjoyed an immense circulation in newspaper 
and pamphlet form, were still further honored by being the 
subject of allusion in President Pierce's annual message. On 
the 22d of December, 1855, Mr. Seward delivered, at Plymouth, 
Massachusetts, an address commemorative of the landing of the 
Pilgrim Fathers, well worthy of the occasion, and his own high 
reputation as a statesman and scholar. During the protracted 
debates on the Kansas difiiculties, in the thirty-fourth session 
of Congress, Mr. Seward bore a conspicuous part ; his speeches 
being elaborate and exhaustive, and his labors indefatigable. 
The affairs of Kansas were also discussed by him, in two able 
speeches on the " Army bill," at the extra session in August. 
After the adjournment, he almost immediately plunged into the 
canvass of the coming Presidential election, in support of 
Fremont — two of his speeches, those delivered at Auburn and 
Detroit, displaying more than ordinary ability. Upon the re-as- 
sembling of Congress in December, he pronounced an eloquent 
and touching eulogium upon his old friend, lion. John M. Clay- 
ton, and during the session he advocated the claims of Revolu- 
tionary officers; the prospect of government aid to the pro- 
posed Atlantic telegraph ; a bill for a telegraph line to Califor- 
nia aod the Pacific coast; the overland mail route, and also the 



216 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

railroad to the Pacific ; a revision of the tariff, by which the 
popular interests should be protected, etc. He also reviewed 
the Dred Scott decision, and proposed such a re-organization of 
the United States courts, as should give all sections of the 
Union a more equable representation, and meet, more fully, the 
■wants of the growing AVest. During the Thirty-fifth Congress, 
"Mr. Seward spoke on a larger variety of subjects than usual ; 
opposing manfully the admission of Kansas into the Union 
under the " Lecompton Constitution," and from first to last, 
advocating the principle that the people of Kansas should be 
left perfectly free to decide upon their own organic law ; 
advocating the increase of the army in Utah for the suppression 
of rebellion there; insisting upon reparation being demanded 
from the British Government for aggressions committed by their 
cruisers upon American vessels in the Mexican Gulf; favoring 
the admission of Minuesota and Oregon into the Union, as 
States ; and various interesting speeches, more or less elaborate, 
upon the Pacific Eailroad, Treasury Notes, the Walker 
■' filibustering" expedition, rivers and harbors, and eulogiums 
upon Senators Eusk of Texas, Bell of New Hampshire, and J. 
Pinckncy Henderson of Texas, of which the first named has 
been considered as one of the finest specimens of mortuary elo- 
quence ever delivered before that body. After the adjournment 
of Congress, Mr. Seward made an argument on the " Albany 
Bridge case," which added largely to his reputation, b}- the 
remarkable knowledge which it displayed of tlie subject of 
navigation and the constitutional questions involved. In the 
autumn campaigns of 1858, he displayed his usual ardor and 
ability in the canvass for State ofliccrs and members of Congress, 
his speeches causing profound sensations, especially that at 
Rochester, New York, in which, speaking of the collision 
between the free and slave systems of labor, he said, ''Shall I 



WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD. 217 

>v;ll you what this collision means? They who think that it i.s 
accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or f'anatica' 
agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogethei 
It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring 
forces, and it means that the United States must and will, 
sooner or later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation, 
or entirely a free-labor nation," These significant w^ords were 
severely denounced by the Democrats as revolutionary and 
dangerous, but they became the rallying cry of the hosts of 
Freedom, and they have been more than vindicated by subse- 
quent events of our national history. Mr. Seward's services 
during the last session of the Thirty-fifth Congress, were ren- 
dered in behalf of those important and beneficent measures of 
which he was always a consistent and persistent frienil, viz., the 
Homestead bill, the Pacific railroad, etc. In 1859, he made 
a second trip to Europe, to restore his health, impaired by 
incessant labor, and returning, devoted himself vigorously, in 
1860, to the canvass of the Western States, in behalf of Abra- 
ham Lincoln. He had, indeed, himself been the prominent 
candidate for the presidency, in the National Eepublican Con- 
vention of that year, his nomination being regarded as certain 
by his friends. On the second ballot he received one hundred 
and eighty-four and one half votes, but on the third was de- 
feated by Mr. Lincoln. During the same year he entertained at 
his table the Prince of Wales and his suite, w^ho were then 
making a tour of the United States — on which occasion he 
casually intimated to his guests, in a jocular but significant 
remark — which was afterwards remembered when he was 
Secretary of State, during the civil war, that it would be a 
dangerous matter for England to meddle with the L^nited States 
in any other way, than that of friendly rivalry. Mr. Seward 
had already foretold the " irrepressible conflict," and when it 



218 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

loomed up in still more threatening guise, and before the ex 
piratiou of his second senatorial term in March, 1861, he boldly 
asserted his position thus — "I avow my adherence to the 
Union with my friends, with my party, with my State, or with- 
out either, as they may determine ; in every event of peace or 
of war, with every consequence of honor or dishonor, of life 
or death." 

Immediately upon Mr. Lincoln's election to the presidency, he 
tendered to Mr. Seward the chief cabinet office, that of Secretary 
of State. It was accepted by the latter, and the difficult and 
perplexing duties Avhich, he thus assumed, were discharged with 
signal ability and success. His judicious administration of the 
office during the early part of Mr. Lincoln's first term, tended 
more than any other cause, to ward off intervention on the part 
of foreign powers, in the momentous struggle then going on 
between the Government and the rebellious States — and he 
challenged the respect and admiration of those powers ttiem- 
selves, as well as of his own fellow-countrymen, by the fairness, 
ability, fulness, and broad statesmanship, with which he dis- 
cussed and settled the many perplexing and unprecedented 
questions which came under the notice of the State Department. 
Conspicuous among these, was the case of the demand by Great 
Britain for the surrender of Messrs. Mason and Slidcll, rebel 
envoys who were forcibly taken by Captain Wilkes of the 
United States navy, from a British ship on which they were , 
passengers, in the fall of 1861. Perhaps, at no time since the 
" War of 1812," has danger of war between England and 
America been so imminent, as then. It was averted, however, by 
the judicious diplomacy of the secretary, who, while avoiding a 
v/ar by surrendering the rebel commissioners to Great Britain, 
on the ground, that, although they and their dispatches were in 
reality contraband of war, yet their captor had committed an 



WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD. 219 

irregularity in not bringing the ship, and all on board, into port 
for adjudication — at the same time made the surrender a means 
of enforcing from that country, the never-before conceded right 
of the freedom of neutral flags on the high seas. 

It is well known that, during Mr, Lincoln's administration, 
Mr. Seward was, in most matters, the ruling spirit, and in 
general it must be admitted that he used his power well. There 
was dissatisfaction, not wholly causeless, at the freedom witli 
which he used the power of arbitrary arrest ; some complaint 
of the capricious, and at times not wholly respectful, manner in 
which he treated the representatives of the weaker foreign 
powers ; some displeasure at his apparently open defiance of 
Congress in relation to the Mexican question, in offering to 
recognize Maximilian, after Congress had voted by a large 
majority to give moral support only to the Juarez govern- 
ment. These and other measures of his, so greatly dissatisfied 
the Republicans, that at their National Convention in Baltimore, 
in 1864:, they passed a resolution requesting the President to 
reconstruct his cabinet. Mr. Seward tendered his resignation, 
as did some of the other cabinet officers, but Mr. Liiu'ohi, who 
knew well Mr. Seward's value in the cabinet, in spite of his 
faults and errors, refused to accept his resignation, and retained 
him in his place. 

Mr. Seward is by nature an optimist, always looking on the 
favorable side of a subject, and indulging, perhaps too much 
for the highest order of statesmanship, in glowing reveries and 
predictions of the wonderful growth, progress, and prosperity 
of our country in the immediate future. During the war, he 
excited some amusement by his oft repeated prophecies that 
it would close in sixty or ninety days. The second of these 
predictions, in his correspondence on the Mason and Slidell 



220 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

affair, furnished food for mirth among our enemies in the British 
Parliament for years. 

After Mr. Lincoln's second inauguration, he re-appointed Mr. 
Seward for his second term, and in the closing events of the 
■war in the east, the secretary rendered him great service. 

Early^in April, 1865, while Mr. Seward was riding in his 
carriage, the horses became frightened and ran, and in attempt- 
ing to jump out, he was thrown to the ground, and his right 
arm was broken, and both sides of the lower jaw fractured. He 
was severely prostrated by this accident, and, for a time, serious 
fears were felt for his recovery. While thus confined to his 
bed, he narrowly escaped falling a victim to the fiendish plan 
of the conspirators who assassinated President Lincoln. Almost 
simultaneously with the attack upon Mr. Lincoln, an assassin 
forced his way into Mr. Seward's chamber, and striking down 
Mr. Frederick Seward, and overcoming the opposition of a 
male nurse, who was in attendance, reached the secretary's 
bedside and inflicted upon him three stabs in the face, which, 
however, .failed of their deadly intent, although they greatly 
protracted his recovery. The assassin fled, but was subsequently 
arrested, convicted, and executed. 

There have been those, even among the strongest friends of 
Mr. Seward in the past, who have been so uncharitable as to 
regret, for his sake, that the assassin failed of the complete 
accomplishment of his purpose at that time ; for, they have 
argued, his career up to that time had been honorable to him- 
self and a glory to the nation, and he would have died in the 
odor of sanctity, and with a martyr's halo around his brow, and 
have been remembered in all the future as the great statesman, 
who loved his country intensely, and laid down his life for her 
sake. 

Without avowing any sympathy with this view, candor com- 



WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD. 221 

pels us to say, that Mr. Seward's course since his recovery I'rom 
those wounds of the assassin, has not been worthy of his previ- 
ous illustrious career. Forgetful, apparently, of his past intense 
loyalt}' and devotion to fi-ecdoni, he has sustained Mr. Jolmsou 
in every attempted usurpation of power ; has assumed a super- 
cilious tone in addressing the people, whose servant he still is ; 
has been vacillating and self-contradictory in his intercourse 
with ibreign powers, and has attempted to distract the attention 
of Congress from the usurpations and crimes of his chief, by 
ilic purchase of extensive territories away from our previous geo- 
graphical limits, and of which we stood in no need. These pur 
chases have been made without any consultations with Congress, 
and solely upon his own judgment ; the prices he offered for 
them were exorbitant, and they were understood to bo but 
the stepping stones to further and still more extensive negotia- 
tions. His purchase from Eussia of the territory of Alaska, for 
seven and a half millions of dollars in gold, was regarded by 
most of our people as unwise, but the negotiations had already 
] proceeded so far, that it will be consummated ; but when he pro- 
ceeded to buy from Denmark, at eight or ten times their value, 
the islands of St. Thomas and Santa Cruz, the home of earth- 
quakes and hurricanes ; entered upon negotiations with San 
Domingo for the bay and harbor of Samana, and turned longing 
eyes upon the island of Cuba, all felt that his greed for land 
\vas growing too great to be longer tolerated, and his negotiations 
were brought to an ignoble conclusion. His ulterior object of 
distracting attention from Mr. Johnson's usiirpations failed as 
signally, and he was involved, even more fully than any of his 
colleagues, in the disgrace of the President. 

The lesson taught to all statesmen by these lamentable errors 
in the conclusion of a long and previously honorable and illus- 
trious career, is, that no length or brilliancy of public service, 



222 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

can atone for great departures from patriotism and loyalty, and 
that where many good deeds are followed by a few evil ones, 
the evil blot out from the memory of the nation all the previous 
good acts. Unpopularity may, indeed, come upon a public ser- 
vant unjustly, and for deeds for which he will subsequently 
receive honor ; but where his life-long friends feel compelled to 
withdraw from him, and in the communities of which he had 
for a quarter of a century been the popular idol, all turn away 
with averted gaze at his approach, the presumption is that his 
course has been one for which there is but little apology. 

In person, Mr. Seward is not prepossessing ; small of stature, 
slender and pale, careless in dress and manner, and with a sad and 
somewhat unpleasant expression, he does not win confidence at 
first. That he is a man of remarkable gifts and talents, none 
who have known his long public career can deny, and that, 
until the close of Mr. Lincoln's life, these gifts were used for 
patriotic and worthy purposes is equally true. Let us hope, 
that in the decline of life, he may recover some of his old pres- 
tige, and again be found doing battle for the right. 



HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN. 




^|ii|nA.T can you raise here?" inquired a distinguished 
English agriculturist, of a friend, a citizen of Maine, as 
they were traversing the rocky, iron-bound coast, 
against which the jSTorth Atlantic dashes its waves in 
summer and winter. " Your soil seems so rocky and sterile 
that no crops Avill thrive in it. What can you grow ?" " We 
raise men," was the proud reply. Yes, the sunrise State does 
raise men^ and one of the best of her products, was the man 
whose history we propose here to sketch briefly. 

Hannibal Hamlin was born in Paris, Maine, August 27th, 
1809. His ancestors were from Massachusetts, and of Puritan 
and revolutionary stock. His grandfather, Eleazar Hamlin, 
commanded a company of minute men in the revolution, and 
had five sons enrolled under him, some of whom served 
through the whole war. Cyrus, one of the sons of Eleazar 
Hamlin, studied medicine, married and settled at Livermore, 
Oxford county, Maine, where he acquired a very extensive 
practice, and was also clerk of the courts for Oxford county, 
for a number of years. Hannibal was the sixth son of Dr. 
Cyrus Hamlin, and, from his boyhood, was a studious, manly 
boy. His brothers have, several of them, attained distinction. 
His eldest brother, Elijah, has long been one of the most promi- 
nent men of the State ; Cyrus, another brother, is well known 
as a missionary of the American Board, at Constantinople, and 



22-i MEN OF OUR DAY. 

is now at tlie head of the Kobert college there. Few men have 
. been more widely useful. It was the intention of Dr. Hamlin 
to give Hannibal a collegiate education, and before he was six- 
teen, he was nearly fitted for college, when the failure of his 
brother Cyrus's health led to a change of plans, and he com- 
menced the study of medicine, while Hannibal remained at 
home to labor on the farm, employing the winter in surve3'ing 
a township of forest land on Dead river, which his father and 
others had purchased. When he was eighteen years of age, his 
father directed him to undertake the study of law, with his 
brother Elijah. He commenced his studies, but at the end of 
six or eight months, his father died, and he returned home, and 
labored on the farm, for the next two years. He was next, for 
about a year, joint proprietor and editor with Horatio King, 
afterwards assistant postmaster general, of a Democratic news- 
paper, Tlie Jeffersonian^ published at Paris, the county seat of 
Oxford coimty. To this paper he contributed both prose and 
poetical articles. But his inclination was still to the study of 
the law, and having sold out his interest in the paper, he entered, 
with his mother's sanction, the office of Hon. Joseph G. Cole, 
and, for the next three years, prosecuted his legal studies with 
him and with the firm of Fessenden, Deblois, and Fessenden, 
the junior partner being the present Senator from Maine. In 
January, 1833, he was admitted to the Oxford county bar, and 
mimediately commenced a successful practice, which continued 
to increase until 1851, when he relinquished farther practice of 
his profession. He soon after removed to Hampden, a flourish- 
ins; village six miles below Bangor, on the Penobscot, and 
married the same year. From 1836 to 1840, he was each year 
elected to the State Legislature, and in 1837, 1839, and 1840, was 
speaker of the House. In 1840, he was the Democratic candi- 
date for Eepresentative in Congress, but was defeated by about 



HON, HANNIBAL HAMLIN, 225 

two hundred votes. In 1S43, he was again a candidate and 
>vas elected by about a thousand majority. 

Though elected as a Democrat, and voting with that party on 
all other questions, Mr. Hamlin, from the commencement of his 
Congressional career, uniformly opposed the extension and 
aggressions of slavery. His first speech in Congress was in 
opposition to the twenty-first rule, by which abolition petitions 
Avere excluded; and he ably and strenuously opposed the 
annexation of Texas, not because he was averse to new acces- 
sions of territory, but because the bill provided for the exten- 
sion of slavery there. His speech, in opposition to the annexa- 
tion on these terms, was one of remarkable eloquence, and its 
defence of New England against the attacks of southern mem- 
bci's, was one of the finest passages of parliamentary oratory. 
"I am sure, sir," he said, " that the hardy sons of the ice-bound 
region of New England, have poured out their blood without 
stint, to protect the shores of the South, or to avenge her 
wrongs- Their bones are even now bleaching beneath the sun, 
on many a southern hill ; and the monuments of their brave 
devotion may still be traced, wherever their country's flag has 
floated on the battle field, or the breeze, upon the lakes, the 
ocean, and the land: — 

" ' New England's dead ! New England's dead ! 

On every field they lie, 
On every field of strife made red, 

With bloody victory ! 
Their bones are on our northern hills, 

And on the sonthern plain ; 
By brook and river, mount and rills, 

And in the sounding main.' 

" I glory in New England and New England's institutions. 

There she stands, with her free schools, and her free labor, her 

fearless enterprise, her indomitable energy ! With her rocky 
15 



226 3IEN OF OUR DAY. 

hills, ber torrent streams, lier green valleys, her heaven pointed 
spires ; there she stands a moral monument around which the 
gratitude of her country binds the wreath of fame, while pro- 
tected freedom shall repose forever at its base." 

Mr. Hamlin was re-elected to Congress in 1844, and though 
known mainly as a working, rather than a talking member, 
(and his reputation was of the highest, as an efficient business 
man,) he took some part in the debates, handling the most im- 
portant questions with great ability. Among the topics on 
which he spoke were the public land question; on giving 
notice to the British Government to terminate the joint occu- 
paucy of Oregon ; on the mode of raising troops for the Mexican 
war ; on the mode of increasing the army, and on establishing a 
territorial government for Oregon. He also offered the Wilmot 
Proviso as an amendment to the famous " three million bill." 

On his return home he served for one session in the Maine 
Legislature, and in May, 1848, was elected to fill the vacancy 
in the United States Senate, caused by the death of Ex-Gover- 
nor Fairfield. In July, 1851, he was again chosen Senator, 
for the full term, by the Democrats and Free Soilers. Hi a 
decided opposition to slavery had alienated a few of the pro- 
slavery Democrats in the Legislature, but their place was more 
than supplied by the Free Soilers, who held the balance of 
power in the Maine Legislature at this time. 

In the Senate, Mr, Hamlin almost immediately took a 
position as one of the ablest members of that body. He was 
not given to participating in the debates on trivial matters, but 
on the great questions of the time he usually gave his care- 
fully considered views, and they commanded the attention and 
respect of the entire Senate. As a working member, he had 
no superior ; he was chairman of the very important Committee 
on Commerce, from 1849 till his resignation of that position iu 



HON, HANNIBAL HAMLIN. 227 

1856, on an occasion to be presently noticed, and drew up and 
matured many of the bills which have proved so beneficial 
to our national commerce. He was also chairman of the Com- 
mittee on the District of Columbia, and an active member of 
other important committees. He was outspoken and decided in 
his efforts for the repression of slavery, and in opposition to its 
aggressive tendencies, and the purpose of its friends to extend it 
over all the new territories, from his entrance into the Senate. 
One of his earliest speeches, in 1848, on the bill providing a 
territorial government for Oregon, denounced in strong and 
manly terms this purpose of the pro-slavery men, and in the 
debates on the admission of California, he was equally explicit 
and earnest. He advocated in the same session the abolition of 
the practice of flogging in the navy. On commercial topics, his 
most important and effective speeches Avere, on the ocean mail 
service ; on regulating the liabilities of ship owners ; on providing 
for the greater security of lives on steamboats ; in defence of 
the river and harbor bill ; for the codifications of the revenue 
laws, etc. 

Up to 185G, Mr. Hamlin had acted with the Democratic party 
on all questions, except those connected with the extension of 
slavery, directly or indirectly. He opposed the repeal of the 
Missouri compromise, the Kansas and Nebraska bill, and the 
Fugitive Slave act, but in all these, others affiliated with that 
party had acted with him ; but the time came, at the national 
Democratic Convention at Cincinnati, in June, 1856, when that 
party succumbed to the slave power, and delivered themselves 
over to the rule and dictation of the South ; then Mr. Hamlin 
felt that he must sever the ties which had hitherto bound him 
to them. He took the first opportunity of doing this which 
offered, rising in his place in the Senate, June 12th, 1856, and 
realigning his position as chairman of the Committee on Coir.- 



22 S MEN' OF OUR DAY. 

merce, and assigning as liis reason, that after the platform and 
resolutions adopted by the convention at Cincinnati, he could 
no longer maintain political associations with a party which in- 
sisted on such doctrines. Thenceforward, he became identified 
with the Republican party. Two or three weeks later he was 
nominated by the Republicans for Governor of Maine, and 
made a personal canvass of the State, speaking nearly one 
hundred times in the different counties. The Democrats had 
carried the State by a large majority the year before, and were 
then in power, but Mr. Hamlin was elected in September, 1856, 
bv an absoliite majority of eighteen thousand over both the 
com]3eting candidates, and of tAventy-thrce thousand over his 
Democratic competitor, more than double the majority ever 
given to any other candidate in that State. On the 7th of 
January, 1857, he resigned his seat in the Senate and was the 
same day inaugurated Governor of Maine. Nine days later, 
January IGth, 1857, he was a third time elected to the Senate, ] 
for the term of six years from March 4th, 1857, and on the 20th 
of February resigned the office of governor, and took his seat 
again in the Senate, on the 4:th of March. During the next four 
yeai's, he was the active and eloquent defender of Republi- 
can principles in the United States Senate, discussing the 
Kansas question with consummate ability^ attacking the Le- 
compton Constitution, replying with great pungency and effect to 
Senator Hammond's " mud-sill" speech, and repelling his assaults 
upon the free laborers of the North. He also exposed the unfair- 
ness and gross sectional partiality of the Democratic majority 
in the Senate, in the formation of the committees, and, in an able 
speech, defended American rights in regard to the fisheries. 

On the 18th of May, 1860, at the Republican National Conven- 
tion at Chicago, Mr. Hamlin was nominated as the candidate of the 
party for the vice-presideuc}' on the ticket with Abraham Lincoln 



HON. HANNIBAL HAJILIN, 229 

The nomiuatiou was entirely miexpccted by Mr. Hamlin and 
took him completely by surprise. It was made spontaneously 
and with great unanimity. The ticket was elected, and on the 
4th of March, 1861, in the midst of civil commotion and the 
loud muttering of the storm which was so soon to burst upon 
the nation. President and Vice-President were inaugurated. 
During the four years that followed, Mr. Hamlin was tho 
President's right hand ; cahii, patient, clear-headed and far-seeing, 
he was able to give wise counsel, and enjoyed, throughout his 
administration, Mr. Lincoln's fullest confidence. It is said that 
in the history of our country, there has been but one other 
instance, in which there was full and perfect harmony between 
the President and Vice-President, and that was in the case of 
President Jackson and Vice-President Van Buren. As the pre- 
siding officer of the Senate, he has rarely, if ever, been equalled 
in the skill with which he conducted its proceedings and the 
dignity with which he guided its deliberations. So thorou2:h 
was his knowledge of parliamentary rule^ and usages, and of the 
precedents of senatorial action, that not a single ruling of his, 
during the four years of his presidency over the Senate, was 
ever over-ruled by that body, and on his taking leave of it all 
parties united in testifying to his courtesy and impartiality. 

At the Baltimore National Eepublican Convention, in 1861, it 
was at first proposed to nominate Mr. Hamlin again to the vice- 
presidency, which he had filled so well ; there was nothing to be 
objected to in his conduct, and very much to praise; but it was 
represented that the position belonged, by right, to some loyal 
representative of the border, or seceded States, and this view 
prevailing, Andrew Johnson was nominated. It has been well 
said, that "with Hannibal HamJin in the vice-presidency, either 
Mr. Lincoln would not have been assassinated, or we should 



230 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

have been spared the trouljle, discord, and disgrace which has 
followed." 

In July, 1865, Mr. Johnson appointed Mr. Hamlin collector 
of the port of Boston, the most lucrative office in New England. 
He held the position about thirteen months, when becoming 
convinced that Mr. Johnson had deserted the party which 
elected him, and abandoned its principles, he felt that he could 
not retain the oJ0&ce, without danger of being identified with 
]\Ir, Johnson's treachery, and resigned it in the following manly 
letter. 

" Custom House, Boston, Collector's Office, Aug. 28, 18G6. 
" To the President : — 

" One year ago you tendered to me, unsolicited on my part, 
the position of collector of customs, for the District of Boston 
and Charlestown. I entered upon the duties of the office, and 
have endeavored faithfully to discharge the same, and I trust in 
a manner satisfactory to the public interested therein. 

"I do not fail to observe the movements and efforts which 
have been, and are now being made to organize a party in the 
country, consisting, almost exclusively, of those actively engaged 
in the late rebellion, and their allies, Avho sought by other means 
to cripple and embarrass the Government. These classes of 
persons, with a small fraction of others, constitute the organiza- 
tion. It proposes to defeat and overthrow the Union Eepubli- 
can party, and to restore to power, without sufficient guaranties 
for the future, and protection to men who have been loyal, those 
who sought to destroy the Government. 

" I gave all tlie influence I possessed to create and uphold the 
Union Republican part}^ during the war, and without the aid 
of wliich our Government would have been destroyed, and the 
rebellion a success. 

'' With such a party as has been inaugurated, and for such 
purposes, I have no sympathy, nor can I acquiesce in its 
measures by my silence. I therefore tender to you my resig- 
cation of the office of collector of customs, for the District of 



HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN. 231 

Boston aud Charlestown, to take effect from tLe time wlicn a 
successor shall be appointed and qualified. 

" Respectfully yours, 

"H.HAMLIN." 

After liis resignation, Mr. Hamlin engaged in the political 
canvass in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maine, in the autumn 
of 1866, and then returned to his home in Bangor, Maine, where 
he remained, engaged in the management of his estate, taking 
part, however, in the political campaign in New Hampshire and 
Connecticut in the spring of 1868. Mr. Hamlin was the first 
choice of several of the States for the vice-presidency in the 
National Convention of May, 1868, and it is no discredit to the 
other eminent and able candidates, to say that no man could 
have filled the ofl&ce better than he. 

Mr. Hamlin is about six feet in height, though apparently 
less, in consequence of his having a slight stoop. His athletic 
and robust form gives a just indication of his great physical 
energy and power of endurance. His complexion is dark, and 
his eyes are of a piercing blackness.* His voice is clear, strong, 
melodious in its tones, and his delivery rapid, energetic, and 
highly effective. He speaks without verbal preparation, but 
without any embarrassment, and witli remarkable directness. 
Always talking to the point, and never for mere effect, he is 
invariably listened to with respect and attention. As a popular 
orator, lie has great power and eloquence. His manners, though 
dignified and decorous, are still remarkable for their republi- 
can simplicity. At his home on the Penobscot, he cultivates 

* The southern political speakers and leaders in the presidential cam- 
paign of 18G0. circulated the report widely throughout the South, and it 
was extensively credited there, that Mr. Ilamlin was a miilatto, and that the 
Repuhlicans had nominated him for the purpose of inciting the negroes to 
rise in rebellion against their masters. Mr. Hamlin's dark complexion was 
tlic only thing wliicli gave the slightest plausibility to this story. 



232 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

his small farm with liis own bands, laboring on it every summer, 
with all the regularity and vigor of his youthful days. In his 
moral character, Mr. Hamlin is wholly without reproach, a mau 
of pure and Christian life, and in his domestic relations, he is 
most devoted and affectionate. No man is more thoroughly 
faithful to his friends than he, and none more highly prizes a 
true friend. His native State honors him, and with reason, for 
he is one of her best products, a manly, noble man in all the 
relations of life. 




^-'VMiVj TR^'^^ ^ 



HON. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WADE, 

VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



(5r)^ T would be hard to find a better illustration of the facility 



q^ j witli which, under Eepublican institutions, a m'an of 
'^Jb^&i genius and integrity may rise from obscurity and 
^ humble life to the most exalted station, than is afforded 
in the history of Hon. Benjamin F. Wade. He has not, it is 
true, like his predecessor, " filled every office, from alderman of 
a small village to President of the United States," but he has 
risen from an humble though honorable and honest condition, to 
the highest positions in the gift of the people, and through all, 
has maintained himself with dignity, propriety, and honor, and 
with a reputation for unflinching adherence to the principles 
of right, justice, and freedom, which any man might covet. 

Benjamin Fkanklin Wade was born in Feeding Hills 

Parish, West Springfield, Massachusetts, October 27th, 1800. He 

was the youngest of ten children. His father was a soldier, 

who fought in every revolutionary battle from Bunker Hill to 

Yorktown. His mother was the daughter of a Presbyterian 

clergyman, a woman of vigorous intellect and great force of 

character. She fed and clothed her brood while the father was 

in the army. The family was one of the poorest in New 

England. A portion of its scanty property was a library of 

twelve books. This eventually became Benjamin's possession 

He read the volumes through and through, and over and over, 

233 



234 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

after his mother had led him so far into an education as to 
teach him to read and write. When Ben was eighteen, he 
tearfully turned his back on the old plow and the older home- 
stead ; and, with seven dollars in his pocket and a bundle of cloth, 
ing on his back, started to walk from Springfield, Massachu- 
setts, to Illinois, to seek his fortune. He footed it to Ashtabula 
county, Ohio. There, the snow falling, he determined to wait 
for spring to finish his journey ; hired himself out to cut wood 
in the forest for fifty cents per cord, and snatched hours from 
sleep at night to read the Bible by the light of the fire on the 
liearih of the log-cabin. Both the Old and the New Testa- 
ments are at his tongue's end. Spring came ; but the journey 
to Illinois and fortune was suspended by a summer's work at 
chopping, logging, and grubbing, followed by a Yankee winter 
at school-teaching. The journey was suspended by a second 
year of such work, and was finally lost in an experience of 
drivins; a herd of cattle. Wade led the " lead" steer of a drove 
from Ohio to New York. Six times he made this trip. The 
last ox he led took him to Albany."^ 'Twas winter. Of course, 

* General Brisbin relates that on one of these occasions Mr. Wade came 
near losing his life. He was leading a steer as usual in front of the drove, 
■when he came to a long covered bridge. The gate-keejier, according to 
the rules, would only allow a few of the herd to pass over at a time, lest their 
weight shonld injure the bridge. Wade started with the advance guard, but 
the cattle in the rear becoming frightened, rushed into the bridge and stampe- 
ded. Young Wade made haste to run, but finding he could not reach the 
other end before the frantic cattle would be upon him and trample him to 
death, he ran to one of the posts, and springing up, caught hold of the 
brace and drew liimself up as high as possible. He could barely keep his 
legs out of the way of the horns of the cattle, but he held on while the 
bridge swayed to and fro, threatening every moment to break under the 
great weight that was upon it. At length the last of the frightened 
animals passed by, and our dangling hero dropped from his perch, to the 
astonishment of the drover, who thought he had been crushed to death, 
and was riding through the bridge, expecting every moment to find his 
crushed and mangled body." 



HON. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WADE. 235 

the drover then expanded into a school-teacher. AVhen the frost 
was out of the ground, scholars and teacher went to manual labor. 
The Erie canal got the teacher. During the summer of 1826 
Wade shoveled and wheeled ; " The only American I know," said 
Governor Seward, in a speech in the Senate, " who worked with 
a spade and wheelbarrow on that great improvement." An- 
other winter of school-teaching in Ohio, and the persuasions 
of Blisha Whittlesey, and the friendly offer of a tavern-keeper 
who had got to loving Wade, tQ trust him bed and board 
without limit, drew Ben, at the age of twenty-six, into a law 
office, to study for the bar. He was admitted in two years. 
He waited another year for his first suit. 

It was but a petty oftence with which his first client was 
charged, but the young lawyer went into his defence with all his 
might, and secured his acquittal. His zeal and resolution secured 
him the friendship of the members of the bar, and after the 
trial was over, the good old presiding judge condescended to 
privately give him a Avord of encouragement. Mr. Wade 
says no one can ever know how much good the kind words 
of the judge did him, and how they put courage into his 
heart to fight the future battles of his life. Without the advan- 
tages of early education, Mr. Wade felt constantly ihe need 
of close application to his law books, and became a hard 
student. The lawyers soon began to notice his opinions, and 
Ihe energy and confidence he threw into a case. He had a 
wonderful deal of sense, and could analyze a knotty question 
with surprising ability. Those lawyers who were far his 
superiors in learning and eloquence could never equal the 
rough backwoodsman in grasping the points in a case and 
presenting them to the jury. 

After six years of unremitting toil. Wade found himself em- 
ployed in almost every case of importance litigated in the 



236" MEN OF OUR DAY. 

circuit where he practiced. He was now a man of note ; his 
law business was constantly increasing, and money was coming 
in to fill his pocket. He felt, as a thousand other men have 
felt, that the struggle of his life was over ; that it was no longer 
with him simply a fight for bread. The world had been met 
and conquered, and the master began to look about him, and 
consider other matters than mere questions of food and clothing. 
Like most men who have taken the rough world by the throat 
and conquered it, Mr. "Wad« felt how completely he was self- 
made, and how little he had to fear from the future. 

In 1835, he was elected prosecuting attorney for the county 
of Ashtabula. His talent for special pleading was remarkable, 
and his indictments are considered models at the present time. 

In 1837, Mr. Wade was offered the nomination to the State 
Senate from his district, and reluctantly accepted. This, Mr. 
"Wade contends to this day, was the great mistake of his life. 
He has been continually successful in politics, and reached the 
second office in the nation ; but he never fails to warn young 
men to stick to their professions, and let politics alone. The 
empty honors of public life, he contends, never repay the poli 
tician for the toils and troubles that beset him at every step ; 
and a quiet home is infinitely to be preferred to the highest 
political honor. 

He was just entering his thirty-eighth year vrlicn lie took his 
seat in the State Senate of Ohio, and at once began his political 
career with the same earnestness that had characterized his 
course at the bar. As a new member, he expected no position ; 
but his fame as a lawyer had preceded him to the capitol, and 
he was appointed a member of the Judiciary Committee. 

Mr. Wade first directed his efforts to the repeal of the laws 
of Ohio whereby the poor but honest man could be imprisoned 
for debt by his creditor. He rapidly rose to the leadership of 



HON. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WADE. 237 

the little squad of Whigs iu the State Senate, and although 
greatly in the minority, he handled his small force so ellectively 
as to keep the Democrats always on the defensive. 

The question of the annexation of Texas coming up, Mr, 
Wado made haste to take bold grounds against slavery. He 
said : 

" This State of Texas coming to the Union, as 't must (if at 
all), with the institution of slavery interwoven with its social 
habits, being brought into this Union for the sole object of ex- 
tending the accursed system of human bondage, it cannot have 
my voice or vote ; for, so help me God, I will never assist in 
adding one rood of slave territory to this country." 

Soon after his efforts to prevent the extension of slavery, the 
black people of Ohio began an active movement for relief from 
the oppressive State laws, and appealed to Mr. Wade to help 
them. He took their petition and presented it in the Senate, 
asking that " all laws might be repealed making distinctions 
among the people of Ohio on account of color." This raised a 
storm of indignation, and even some of Mr. Wade's personal 
and party friends warned him to desist in his efforts to place a 
negro on equal footing with a white man, but Wade sternly re- 
buked them, and insisted on his petitions being heard. At first 
the Senate refused to hear what the negroes had to say, but at 
length received their petition, and at once laid it on the table, 
Mr. Wade protesting, and saying, with great vehemence and 
earnestness to the majority : " Eemember, gentlemen, you have, 
by your votes, in this free State of Ohio, so treated a part of her 
people, these black men and women." 

At the close of his senatorial term, Mr. Wade found his negro 
doctrines had made him unpopular with his constituents. When 
the convention met in his district, he was not only passed over 
and a new man nominated, but some of the delegates thought it 
would be a good thing to censure him for his course. Mr. 



238 MEN OF OUR DAT. 

Wade had given great offence by his vehement opposition to 
State appropriations for internal improvements, and the Com- 
missioners appointed by the Legislature of Kentucky to visit 
Ohio and obtain, as Mr. Wade said, " the passage of a law to 
degrade the people of Ohio." 

The bill they sought to have made a law, was one of pains 
and penalties, intended to repulse from Ohio the unhappy 
negro, whether bond or free — flying from the cruelty of a mas- 
ter — or, if manumitted, from the persecution of the superior 
class of laborers in a slave State, who abhor such rivals. Mr. 
Wade's noble nature revolted against the tyranny which would 
not allow human beings a refuge anjMvhere on a continent from 
which they had no outlet, and into which they had been 
dragged against their will ; and he opposed the measure with all 
his might. 

Mr. Wade, conscious that he had done right, when his sena- 
torial term was out, returned to his home and recommenced the 
practice of law, resolving never again to stand for any political 
office. In 1840, when General Harrison was nominated for 
President, Mr. Wade, yielding to the wishes of his friends and 
the excitement and enthusiasm of the hour, took the stump, 
and in this campaign, for the first time in his life, became a 
stump orator. His speeches were plain, matter-of-fact talks, 
which the people thoroughly understood, and he became popu- 
lar. He passed over the Reserve, addressing thousands of peo- 
ple, and laboring day and night for General Harrison's election. 
As soon as the canvass was over, he returned to his law office, 
at Jefferson, and began to work up his cases again, regretting 
that he had not paid more attention to his clients, and less to 
politics. He had remained single till his forty-first year, but 
then met with the lady who subsequently became his wife, at 
the residence of a client. His marriage has been an eminently 



HON. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WADE. 239 

happy one, and his two children, both sons, distinguished them- 
selves and did honor to the name they bear, during the late 
war. 

In 1841, the people of Ohio having come to thoroughly 
understand and detest the speculations of internal improvements, 
and the Kentucky black laws, Mr. AVade's views were adopted, 
and he became popular as a wise legislator. The people of his 
district tendered him a re-nominatiou to the State Senate, but 
he declined. When the convention met, however, he was placed 
in nomination and triumphantly elected, by a largely increased 
majority over his former election. 

No sooner had he taken his seat than he renewed his labors 
in behalf of equal rights, and the repeal of all laws making dis- 
tinctions on account of color. He brought forward the petition 
of George W. Tyler, and fifty-four other persons, praying for 
the repeal of the fugitive slave law, passed by Ohio, in 1838, to 
please Kentucky. Wade argued, in an able speech, that negroes 
were men the same as white persons, and as such entitled to 
personal liberty, trial by jury, testimony in the courts, and com- 
mon school privileges. Kentucky was then opposed to all 
these things, and used her influence with Ohio to prevent her 
from adopting a liberal and just policy toward her black 
population. That was in 1841, more than a quarter of a centu- 
ry ago, and although it cannot be said Kentucky has advanced 
much in the business of securing her black people equal rights, 
she has done much toward changing their complexion. Herein 
Kentucky and her people differed from Mr. Wade and the peo- 
ple of Ohio ; Kentucky desired to equahze her population by 
nature, Ohio by law. Of the two processes we think posterity 
will incline to the belief that the former was the best. 

In February, 18-12, a " bill for the incorporation of Oberlin 
Collegiate Institute, an institution for the education of persons, 



240 ilEN OF OUR DAY. 

without regard to race or color," came up in the Senate of Oliio. 
Mr. Wade advocated the bill, but it was voted down. This 
bill afterward passed, and was the foundation of the excellent 
college at Oberlin, Ohio, an institution that has furnished mora 
than five Imndred anti-slavery missionaries, teachers and preach- 
ers, and done more than any other college to unmask the de- 
formities of the system of human bondage. 

While he was in the State Senate, the people of Ohio peti 
tioned their Legislature to protest against the infiimous resolu- 
tion, passed by Congress in 1837, relating to slavery. This 
resokitiou was in these words: 

Resolved^ That all petitions, memorials, and papers touch ing 
the abolition of slavery, or buying, selling or transferring of 
slaves in any State, District or Territory of the United States, 
be laid on the table without being debated, read or referred, 
and that no further action whatever shall be taken thereon. 

Mr. Wade was appointed a special committee, and the peti- 
tion of the people of Ohio, and the resolution complained of, 
referred to him with directions to make a report on them. It 
is said Wade read and examined, for three weeks, books and au- 
thorities, before he began writing his report ; be that as it may, 
certain it is, his report was at the time, and is still, regarded 
as one of the ablest anti-slavery documents ever published 
in this country. Thirty years have elapsed since then, and yet 
in all that time few reasons have been advanced against slavery 
that cannot be found embodied in Mr. Wade's report. 

At the same session he defended, with great ability and elo- 
quence, the course of John Quincy Adams in upholding the 
right of petition in Congress. Mr. Adams had been censured 
by the Uouse for presenting the Haverhill resolutioiis, asking 
for the dissolution of the Union, and the Ohio Legislature 
undertook to justify that censure, but Mr. Wade and his anti- 



HON. BENJAMIN FKANKLIN WADE. 2-il 

slavery friends, resisted the course of the Democratic majority 
with great energy and ability, though not with success. 

At the close of his second senatorial term, Mr. Wade declined 
a rcuoniiuation, and again determined to leave off, forever, 
political life. From 1842 to 18-i7 he held no public oHice, and 
devoted himself to the practice of his profession and the care of 
his family. 

In February, 18-47, Mr. Wade was elected, by the Legislature, 
president judge of the third judicial district of the State of 
Ohio. Ilis popularity at this time was unbounded. It has 
been the fortune of but few men to enter upon the discharge of 
judicial duties, having in advance secured to such an extent 
the unqualified confidence of the bar and people. He entered 
immediately upon the discharge of his duties. His district em- 
braced the populous counties of Ashtabula, Trumbull, Maho- 
ning, Portage, and Summit. The business had accumulated 
vastly under his predecessor. The same territory has now three 
resident judges, with but slightly increased business. 

It is but truth to say, that in no country on earth has the 
same number of people had the same amount of important and 
satisfactory justice administered to them in the same length of 
time, as had the district under the administration of Judge 
Wade. The younger members of the profession, who were so 
fortunate as to practice in this circuit during, Judge Wade's 
term upon the bench, will remember with lasting gratitude his 
kindness and judicial courtesy. 

During the time he was upon the bench. Judge Wade in- 
creased (if possible) in the confidence and admiration of his 
political friends, and disarmed those who had differed with him, 
and had felt the withering power of his logic and eloquence on 
the stump and at tlie bar. His judicial career was brought to 

d sudden and unexpected close in March, 1851, while he was 
16 



242 MEN OF OUR DAT. 

liolding a term of court at Akron, Summit couuty, by his elec- 
tion by the Legislature, then in session, to the United States 
Senate. 

When th& news of his election reached him, Judge AVade 
was on the bench trying a case. The firing of cannon, and 
shouting of men, announced that some unusual event had taken 
place and presently a boy came running into the court with a 
dispatch informing Mr. Wade he had been elected a United 
States Senator from Ohio. 

The intelligence surprised no one so much as the judge, who 
had no knowledge that his name had been mentioned in con- 
nection with it, and had made no efforts to secure a nomination. 
The members of the bar in his judicial district were fall of 
regret at his loss to the bench, but were pleased that his talents 
were at last appreciated. Resolutions of mingled regret and 
congratulation were passed, almost unanimously, in the various 
counties comprising his circuit. 

Mr, Wade was again persuaded to reluctantly give up his 
law business, and go into politics. He did so, however, with 
less regret this time than before, because the people of Ohio 
had come up to his anti-slavery views. He felt that in repre- 
senting the majority of the people of his State, he need make 
no sacrifice of his own opinions, and he was most anxious to 
attack slavery at the capital, and, if possible, arouse the people 
of the country to the enormities of the institution, as he had 
aroused the people of Ohio. 

After his election to the United States Senate, in 1851, Mr. 
Wade resigned his scat on the bench, and retired to his home 
at Jefferson. 

In 1852, Mr. Wade advocated the nomination and election of 
General Scott to the presidency. He still insisted, and ardently 
hoped, that the Whig party, with which he had always acted 



HON. BENJAMIN' FrtAXKLIX WADE. 243 

and in wliicli lie saw so much to a|)})vovo nnd adniirc, would 
jel be instrumental in bringing back the Government to the 
purpose of its founders. Stimulated by this consideration, he 
again took the stump, in and out of Ohio, and made the hustings 
ring with the clarion sound of his voice. AVherever he was 
heard, his reasoning was listened to with the most profound 
attention ; and where he failed to convince, he obtained credit 
for honesty of purpose and powerful effort. 

Mr. Wade continued to act with the Whig party until 1854, 
when the proposition to repeal the Missouri Compromise began 
to agitate Congress. In March, 1854, he made a speech in the 
Senate, clearly defining his position, and fully demonstrating 
his determined hostility to a measure which, he predicted, would 
be fraught with more evil to the country, and danger to its 
peace, than had ever before disturbed its prosperity. After this 
speech he contented himself with watching the events which he 
saw must ultimately end in the consummation of all the evils he 
had predicted. He learned, by discussion of the measure, that 
it was to be carried by a combination of the southern Whigs, 
and those who for the occasion assumed the name of "iSTational 
Democrats." At this union for such a purpose, his heart 
sickened, and he prepared himself to give utterance to the noble 
sentiments and awful warnings contained in his speech, delivered 
OD the night of the final passage of that measure in the Senate. 
1 he Tribune of that date appropriately called that speech " the 
new Declaration of Independence." * In this speech Mr. Wade 
takes a final farewell of his former Whig friends of the South, 
but not until he had seen solemnized the nuptials between them 
and the Democratic party. We cannot refrain from giving a 
few extracts from this speech. He said : — 

" Mr. President : I do not intend to debate this subject further. 
The humiliation of the North is complete and overwhelming. 



244' MEN" OF OUR DAY. 

No southern enemy of hers can wish her deeper degradation. 
God knows I feel it keenly enough, and I have no desire to 
prolong the melancholy spectacle. * * * I have all my life 
belonged to the great National Whig party, and never yet have 
I failed, with all the ability I have, to support her regular 
candidates, come from what portion of the Union they might, 
and much oftener has it been my lot to battle for a southern 
than for a northern candidate for the presidency ; and when 
such candidates were assailed by those who were jealous of 
slaveholders, and did not like to yield up the Government to 
such hands, how often have I encountered the violent prejudices 
of my own section with no little hazard to myself. How tri- 
umphantly Avould I appeal on such occasions to southern 
honor — to the magnaniniity of soul which I believed always 
actuated southern gentlemen. Alas ! alas ! if God will pardon 
me for what I have done, I will promise to sin no more. * * * 
"We certainly cannot have any further political connection with 
the Whigs of the South ; they have rendered such connection 
impossible. An impassable gulf separates us, and must here- 
after separate us. The southern wing of the old Whig party 
have joined their fortunes with what is called the National 
Democracy, and I wish you joy in your new connections. * * * 
To morrow, I believe, is to be an eclipse of the sun, and I think 
it perfectly meet and proper that the sun in the heavens, and 
the glory of the Kepublic should both go into obscurity and 
darkness together. Let the bill then pass ; it is a proper oc- 
casion for so dark and damning a deed." 

N' exti'acL can do any thing like justice to the mind that 
conceived, and the noble mfinliness that gave this speech utter- 
ance. From the time Mr. Wade made this speech, lie has 
known no Whig party, but devoted himself, soul and body, to the 
advocacy and defence of the measures of the Eepublican party. 

In the struggle over the Kansas-Nebraska bill, Mr, Wade 
came fully before the country as a debater. The southern fire- 
eaters and northern doughfaces combined to break him down. 



HON. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WADE. 245 

but he hurled them hack with surprising ability, and for the 
first time the southerners learned they had a nortliern master 
in the United States Senate, and were overmatched whenever 
they came in contact with the old Ohio Senator.* The New 

* It is to this portion of Mr. Wade's career that the story so graphically 
told by General Brisljin belongs, and it illustrates so well liis utter fear- 
lessness that we cannot refrain from quoting it. 

Soon after taking his seat, he witnessed one of those scenes so common 
in the Senate in those days. A southern fire-eater made an attack on a 
northern Senator, and Wade was amazed and disgusted at the cringing, 
cowardly way in which the northern man bore the taunts and insults of 
the hot-headed southerner. As no allusion was made to himself or State, 
Mr. Wade sat still, but when the Senate adjourned, he said openly, if ever 
a southern Senator made such an attack on him or his State while he sat 
on that floor, he would brand him as a liar. This coming to the ears of the 
southern men, a Senator took occasion to pointedly speak a few days after- 
wards of Ohio and her people as negro thieves. Instantly Mr. Wade 
sprang to his feet and pronounced the Senator a liar. The southern 
Senators were thunderstruck, and gathered around their champion, while 
the northern men grouped about Wade. A feeler was put out from the 
southern side, looking to retraction, but Mr. Wade retorted in his 
peculiar style, and demanded an apology for the insult offered himself 
and the people he represented. The matter thus closed, and a fight was 
looked upon as certain. The next day a gentleman called on the Sena- 
tor from Ohio, and asked the jisual question touching his acknowledgment 
of the code. 

" I am here," he responded, " in a double capacity. I represent the State 
of Ohio, and I represent Ben. AYade. As a Senator I am opposed to duelling. 
As Ben. Wade, I recognize the code." 

'• My friend feels aggrieved," said the gentleman. " at what you said in 
the Senate yesterday, and will ask for an apology or satisfaction." 

"I was somewhat embarrassed," continued Senator Wade, "by my posi- 
tion yesterday, as I have some respect for the Chamber. I now take this 
opportunity to say what I then thought, and you will, if you please, repeat 
it. Your friend is a foul-mouthed old blackguard." 

" Certainly, Senator Wade, you do not wish me to convey such a message 
as that ?" 

•'Most undoubtedly I do; and will tell you for your own benefit, this 
friend of yours will never notice it. I will not be asked for either retrac- 
tion, explanation, or a fight." 

Next morning Mr. Wade came into the Senate, and proceeding to his 
Beat, deliberately drew from under his coat two large pistols, and unlocking 



246 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

York Tribune, speaking of liis first great speech on the Kansas 
Nebraska bill saj-s : — 

" There are many fine orations and good arguments delivered 
in the United States Senate from time to time, but not often a 
reallj good speech. In order to have a good speech, there must 
be a man behind it. Such a speech we have in the powerful 
effort of Judge Wade, and in this case the speech is but the just 
measure of the man." 

Numberless are the incidents told of Mr. Wade's sharp and 
telling hits made during this protracted and famous debate. 
We subjoin a few, for most of which we are indebted to General 
Brisbin. 

his desk laid them inside. The southern men looked on in silence, while 
the northern members enjoyed to the fullest extent the fire-eaters' surprise 
at the proceedings of the plucky Ohio Senator. No further notice was 
tsken of the affair of the day before. Wade was not challenged, but ever 
afterwards treated with the utmost politeness and consideration by the 
Senator who had so insultingly attacked him. 

But, while Mr. AVade was not to be intimidated by the bullying of southern 
lire-eaters, no man living surpassed him in his intense contempt for northern 
doughfaces. Another incident, not narrated by Gen. Brisbin, but which 
occurred in the session of 1852-3 illustrates this very forcibly. Hon. Charles 
G. Atherton of New Hampshire, better known as " Gag Atherton," from his 
introduction of the resolution to lay all anti-slavery petitions on tlie table, 
was emphatically a " Northern man with Southern principles." One day, jNlr. 
AVade, who was personally very popular, even with his political opponents, 
was conversing with Ex-Governor Morehcad of Kentucky, who was then 
visiting Washington, when Atherton came up, and at once began an attack 
on Mr. Wade, in regard to the Fugitive Slave law. " Why, Mr. Wade," 
he said, "if a nigger had run away from a good master in Kentuckj'. and 
came to your house iu Ohio, wouldn't you arrest him, and send him back 
to his master?" "No! indeed, I wouldn't;" replied Mr. Wade. "Would 
you. Atherton?" "Certainly, I would," replied Mr. Atherton, "I should 
deem it my duty, to enforce that as much as any other law." Mr. Wade 
turned to Morehead; "Well, Governor, Avhat do you say? Would you 
arrest a nigger and send him back under such circumstances?" "No," 
replied (Governor Morehead, gruffly, " I'd see him d — d first." " Well," said 
Old Ben. after a moment's pause. "I don't know as I can blame you, seeing 
you have got such a Lhimj as this'' (pointing to Atherton) to do it for you." 



HON, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WADE. 247 

Mr. Pugb, Judge Wade's collonguc in the Senate, was au 
intense pro-slavery Democrat ; lie was a man of very fair ability, 
but no matcli in wit or sarcasm for liis radical colleague, yet lie 
often sought a collision, and Mr. Wade never hesitated to reply 
lo bis challenge. One day, Pugli had put some taunting ques- 
tiDns to him respecting the common brotherhood of mankind; 
Wade replied : — 

" I have always believed, heretofore, in the doctrines of tho 
Declaration of Independence, that all men are born free and 
equal ; but of late it appears that some men are born slaves, and 
I regret that they are not black, so all the world might know 
them.'' As he said this he pointed to Pugh, and stood looking 
at him for several moments, with a scowl and expression of 
countenance that was perfectly ferocious. 

Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, interrupted him just as he had 
said, "1 know very well, sir, with what a yell of triumph the 
passage of this bill will be hailed both in the South and in 
pandemonium." 

Mr. Brown. — "Do you know what is going on there?" 
[Laughter.] 

Mr. Wade. — " I do not pretend to know precisely what is on 
foot there; but I think it pretty evident that there is a very 
free communication between that country and this body, and 
unless I am greatly mistaken, I see the dwarfish medium by 
which that communication is kept up." [Great laughter, and a 
voice on the southern side, " I guess he's got you, Brown.'"] 

During the argument on the Nebraska bill, Mr. Badger, then 
a Senator from North Carolina, drew a glowing picture of 
slavery. He had, he said, been nursed by a black woman, and 
had grown from childhood to manhood under her care He 
loved his old black mammy; and now, if he was going to 
Nebraska, and the opponents of the bill succeeded in prohibit- 



248 MEN' OF OUR DAY. 

ing slavery tlierc^ he could not take bis old mammy with him 
Turning to Mr. Wade, he said : — " Surely you will not prevent 
me from taking my old mammy with me ?" 

" Certainly not," replied Mr. Wade ; " but that is not the 
difficulty in the mind of the Senator. It is because, if we make 
the territory free, he cannot sell his old mammy when he has 
got her there." 

Mr. Wade was arguing to show that slaves were not property 
in the constitutional meaning of the term. lie said : " If a man 
carries his horse out of a slave State into a free one, he does 
not lose his property interest in him ; but if he carries his 
slave into a free State, the law makes him free." 

Mr. Butler, interrupting him, said : " Yes, but they won't 
stay with you; they love us so well they will run off, and come 
back, in spite of you and your boasted freedom." 

Mr. Wade smilingly replied, amid roars of laughter : " Oh, 
yes, Senator, I know they love you so well, you have to make a 
Fugitive Slave law to catch them." 

The southern men, having tried in vain to head off Mr. 
Wade, appealed to their northern allies to help them. One 
day Mr. Douglas rose in his seat, and interrupted Mr. Wade, 
who was speaking. Instantly the chamber became silent as 
death, and all eyes were turned in the direction of the two 
standing Senators. Every one expected to see Wade demolished 
in a moment, b}?" the great Illinois Senator. 

*' You, sir," said Mr. Douglas, in measured tones, " continually 
compliment southern men who support this bill (Nebraska), 
but bitterly denounce northern mcu who support it. Why is 
this ? You say it is a moral wrong ; you say it is a crime. If 
that be so, is it not as much a crime for a southern man to 
support it, as for a northern man to do so ?" 

Mr. Wade. — " No, sir, I say not." 



HON. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WADE. 249 

Mr. Douglas. — " The Senator says not. Then he entertains a 
different code of morals from myself, and — " 

Mr. "Wade interrupting Douglas, and pointing to him, with 
scorn marked on every lineament of his face, " Your code of 
morals ! Your morals ! ! My God, I hope so, sir." 

The giant was hit in the forehead, and after standing for a 
moment with his face red as scarlet, dropped silently into his 
seat, while Mr. Wade proceeded with his speech as quietly as 
though nothing had occurred. 

Mr. Douglas was angry, however, and closely watched Wade 
for a chance to pounce upon and scalp him. It soon occurred, 
and in this way : Mr. Wade had said something complimentary 
about Colonel Lane, of Kansas, when Mr. Douglas rose and 
said : " Colonel Lane cannot be believed — he has been guilty of 
perjury and forgery." 

Mr. Wade. — " And what proof, sir, have you of these allega- 
tions ? Your unsupported word is not sufficient." 

Mr. Douglas. — " I have the affidavit of Colonel Lane, in 
which, some time since, he swore one thing, and now states 
another." 

Mr. Wade. — " And you, sir, a lawyer, presume to charge this 
man with being guilty of forgery and perjury, and then offer 
him as a witness to prove your own word." 

Douglas saw in a moment he was hopelessly caught, and 
attempted to retreat, but Wade pounced upon him and gave 
him a withering rebuke, while the chamber shook with roars of 
laughter. Such scenes have to be witnessed to fully understand 
them, as there is as much in the exhibition as in the words. 

Mr. Douglas continued to badger Wade, sometimes getting 
the better of him, but often getting roughly handled, until 
Wade, worn out with defending himself, determined to become 
the attacking party. Soon afterward, the " Little Giant " was 



250 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

bewailing the fate of tlie nation, and picturing the sad condition 
it" would be in if the Free Soilers succeeded. Having worked 
himself up into a passion, Avhen he was at the highest pitch, Mr. 
Wade rose in his seat and said, with indescribable coolness, 
"Well, what are you going to do about it?" Douglas, for a 
moment, was surprised and dumbfounded, and then attempted to 
proceed ; but the pith was knocked out of his argument, and the 
Senators only smiled at his earnestness, and he, at last, sat down 
in disgust. 

Mr. Douglas afterward said, '' That interrogatory of Wade's 
was the most effective speech I ever heard in the Senate. Con- 
found the man ; it was so ridiculous, and put so comically, I 
knew not what answer to make him, and became ridiculous 
myself in not being able to tell 'what I was going to do 
about it.' " 

While the Lecompton bill was under discussion, Mr. Toombs, 
of Georgia, referring to the minority, of which Mr. Wade was 
one, said: "The majority have rights and duties, and I trust 
there is fidelity enough to themselves and their principles, and 
to their country, in the majority, to stand together at all haz- 
ards, and crush this factious minority." 

Instantly, Mr. Wade sprang to his feet, and shaking his fist 
at Toombs, roared out : " Have a care, sir ; have a care. You 
can't crush me nor my people. You can never conquer us , we 
will die first. I may fall here in the Senate chamber, but I will 
never make any compromise with any such men. You may 
bring a majority and out-vote me, but, so help me God, I will 
neither compromise or be crushed. That's what I have to say 
to your threat." 

A southern Senator one day said, roughly, to Wade, "If you 
don't stop your abolition doctrines, we will break up the Union. 
We will secede, sir !" Wade held out his hand, and said, com- 



HON. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WADE. 251 

ically, " Good-by, Senator, if you are going now ; I pray you 
don't delay a moment on my account." 

Senator Evans, of South Carolina, a very grave and good old 
man, one day was exhibiting in the Senate cliamber and speak- 
ing of a copy of Garrison's Liberator, with its horrible pictures 
of slavery. Turning to Mr. Wade, who sat near him, he said : 
" Is it not too bad that such a paper should be allowed to exist ? 
"Why will not the authorities of the United States suppress such 
a slanderous sheet ? Can it be possible that any patriotic citizen 
of the Korth will tolerate such an abomination?" Senator 
Wade put on his spectacles, and looking at the title of the paper, 
exclaimed in surprise, " Why, Senator Evans, in Ohio, we con- 
sider this one of our best family papers !" The Senators roared ; 
but Mr. Evans, who had a great respect for Mr. Wade, turned 
sadly aAvay, saying, "I am sorry to hear you say so, Mr. Wade; 
it shows whither we are drifting." 

Notwithstanding Mr. Wade's bitter opposition to the slave 
power, the southern men always respected and liked him. Mr. 
Toombs, the Georgia fire-eater, said of him, in the Senate : " My 
friend from Ohio puts the matter squarely. He is always honest, 
outspoken and straightforward, and I wish to God the rest of 
you would imitate him. He speaks out like a man. He saya 
what is the diflerence, and it is. He means what he says ; you 
don't always. He and I can agree about every thing on earth 
except our sable population." 

There was not a northern demasfosfue in Cong;ress who would 
not have given gladly all his ill-gotten reputation to have had 
such a compliment paid him by a southern Senator as was paid 
by Mr, Toombs to Senator Wade. 

In the debates on the organization of Kansas as a State, Mr. 
Wade avowed himself a Eepublican — a Black Republican, if 
they chose to call him so — and as determined in his opposition 



252 MEN- OF OUR DAT. 

to slavery extension, under all circumstances and at all times. 
In the course of one of the speeches he made on that question, 
he made use of the following language : 

" Sir, I am no sycophant or worshipper of power anywhere. 1 
know how easy it is for some minds to glide along with the cur- 
rent of popular opinion, where influence, respectability, and all 
those motives which tend to seduce the human heart are brought 
to bear. I am not unconscious of the persuasive power exerted 
by these considerations to drag men along in the current ; but I 
am not at liberty to travel that road. I am not unaware how 
unpopular on this floor are the sentiments I am about to advo- 
cate. I well understand the epithets to which they subject their 
supporters. Every man who has been in this hall for one hour 
knows the difference between him who comes here as the de- 
fender and supporter of the rights of human nature, and liim 
who comes as the vile sycophant and flatterer of those in power. 
I know that the one road is easy to travel ; the other is hard, 
and at this time perilous. But, sir, I shall take the path of duty 
and shall not swerve from it. 

" I am amazed at the facility with which some men follow in 
the wake of slavery. Sometimes it leads me even to hesitate 
whether I am strictly correct in my idea that all men are born 
to equal rights, for their conduct seems to me to contravene the 
doctrine. I see in some men an abjectness, a want of that manly 
independence which enables a man to rely on himself and face 
the world on his own principles, that I don't know but that I am 
wrong in advocating universal liberty. I wish to heaven all 
such were of the African race." 

The brutal and cowardl}^ attack on Hon. Charles Sumner by 
Preston S. Brooks, in May, 1856, called out all the grand and 
heroic elements of Mr. Wade's nature. Others might hesitate 
and fear to enter upon the discussion of the question of slavery, 
when its advocates resorted to the bludgeon and pistol as their 
"reply to tlie arguments of the anti-slavery men ; but it was not 
m Ben Wade to falter. On the next day after the outrage he 



HON. BENJAMIN FliANKLIN WADE. 253 

rose and commenced his speech in denunciation of the atrocious 
deed, witli these memorable words: 

" Mr. Tresident, if the hour has arrived in the history of this 
Eepublic when its Senators are to be sacrificed and pay the for- 
feit of their lives for opinions' sake, I know of no litter place to 
die than in this chamber, with our Senate robes around us ; and 
here, if necessary, I shall die at my post, and in my place, for the 
liberty of debate and free discussion." 

The southern men writhed, as if in pain, as his scathing words 
fell hot and heavy upon them, portraying the cowardice, the 
meanness, the infamy of the deed, and it required a brow of 
brass to stand up in defence of it, after this severe yet dignified 
denunciation of the assault. 

During the war, Senator Wade was one of the ablest and 
most untiring members of the Senate. He was chairman of the 
Committee on Territories, and also of the special Committee on 
the Conduct of the War, a committee whose services were of the 
greatest value to the national cause. 

Ohio has wisely kept him in the Senate for three successive 
terms, the last of which will end March 4, 1869. In the begin- 
ning of March, 1867, the term of office of Hon. Lafayette S. 
Foster, President pro tern of the Senate, and acting Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States, having expired, Mr. Wade was elected 
by the Senate as their presiding officer, a position for which his 
large experience, thorough political and parliamentary know- 
ledge, and fearless independence, eminently fitted him. During 
the impeachment trial, he, according to the Constitution, resigned 
the chair to the Chief Justice of the United States, whose duty 
it was to preside in such a trial, and it was the understanding 
that in case of the President's conviction, Mr. Wade would suc- 
ceed to the presidential chair. 

In person, Mr. Wade is about five feet eight inches in height, 



254 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

Stout, and of dark but clenr complexion. His eyes are small, 
jet black and deeply cut, and when roused, tliey sbine like coals 
of fire. He is slightly stooped, but walks without a cane, and 
is sprightly and active. His jaws are firm and large, the under 
one being very strong and compact. The lips are full and round, 
the upper one doubling, at the corners of his mouth, over the 
lower one, which gives the Senator a ferocious and savage sort 
of look ; and this it is that causes so many persons to misunder- 
stand the true character of the man, and mistake him for a fierce, 
hard, cold man, when he is, in reality, one of the warmest, 
kindest-hearted men in the world. His face is not a handsome 
one, and if you examine it in detail, you will say he is an ugly 
man ; and yet there is in that face a sort of rough harmony, an 
honest, bluff, heartiness that makes you like it. There is nothing 
weak, bad, or treacherous-looking about it ; and when he speaks 
the features light up, and the mobilized countenance gives to 
the straightforward words such an interest that you no longer 
remember his homeliness at all. When sitting silent or listen- 
ing, he has a way of looking at one with his piercing black eyes 
that at once disconcerts a rascal or dishonest man, and is often 
most annoying to the innocent and honest. You feel he is read- 
ing you and weighing closely your motives for what you are 
saying. There is no use in trying to deceive or lie to old Ben. 
Wade ; if he don't find you out and hint at your motives before 
you leave, rest assured he understands you, and only keeps his 
belief to himself, because he does not desire to wound your 
feelings. 

We do not think Mr. Wade ever owned such a thing as a 
finger-ring or breast-pin. He dresses in plain black, and wears 
a standing-collar of the old style, and is always scrupulously 
clean. Always talkative and lively when out of his seat, he is 
silent, grave and thoughtful when in the Senate chamber. Any 



HON. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WADE. 255 

one who looks at him from tlic galleries, as he sits daily in the 
Vice-President's chair, presiding over the deliberations of the 
highest tribunal in the land, will see in his quiet repose a pic- 
ture of real strength and dignity such as should characterize the 
American Senator. 

As chairman of the Committee on Territories, he reported 
the first provision prohibiting slavery in all the territory of the 
United States to be subsequently acquired ; the bill for negro 
suffrage in the District of Columbia ; carried the homestead bill 
through the Senate ; led the Senate in the division of Virginia 
and the formation of the new State of West Virginia ; and 
secured the admission of Nevada and Colorado into the Union. 

On one point only did he differ from Mr. Lincoln, viz. : his 
proposed reconstruction policy; and the difference was for a 
time strong and decided; but, in the end, Mi. Lincoln acknow- 
ledged that that was the great error of his life, and receded from 
the measures he had proposed. 



HON. SCHUYLER COLFAX, 

SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 



'N tlie life history of this eminent statesman, so widely 
known and so universally beloved, we have another of 
those instances of which we have had so many in this 
volume, of a man rising by the power of genius and 
industry from humble life, and filling exalted stations with a 
grace, ease, and dignity, which could not be surpassed had he 
been ^'to the manor born." 

Schuyler Colfax comes from some of our best revolution- 
ary stock. His grandfather, Captain Colfax, was the command- 
ant of General Washington's body-guard ; his grandmother was 
a near kinswoman of that noble patriot of the Revolution., 
Major-General Philip Schuyler. He was born in New York 
city, March 23d, 1823, his father having died in early manhood, 
a short time before his birth. ^Yhen he was ten years old, his 
mother married again, becoming the " Mrs. Matthews," whom 
all recent habitues of "Washington have seen presiding at her 
son's receptions. With this event the boy's school life closed, 
but the scant}' term seems to have been well improved, for one 
of his early schoolmates tells us " Schuyler always stood at the 
head of his class." The next three years were spent in his step- 
father's store. In 1836, his stepfather having decided to emi- 
256 



HON. SCHUYLER COLFAX. 257 

grate to the west, Schuyler accompanied liis parents to the 
valley of the St. Joseph river, and they settled in New Carlisle, 
St. Joseph county, Indiana. The region was then a wilderness, 
but it is now densely populated, and its thrift, fertility, enterprise 
and beaut}^ have made it the garden of the State. The five 
years which followed, wore, we believe, spent as clerk in a 
country store. His disposition to study was inbred, and every 
leisure moment was improved. A friend and companion of hig 
boyhood, in New York, now an active business man and 
philanthropist, tells us that, in those days, he and Schuyler 
Colfax kept up an active correspondence, and that Schu.yler's 
letters always spoke of the studies he was prosecuting by him- 
self in the wilderness, and were fall of knotty questions, which 
both tried their best to solve. 

In 1841, his stepftither, Mr. Matthews, was elected county 
auditor, and removed to South Bend. Schuyler became his 
deputy, and made such studious use of his leisure, that when 
but little more than eighteen, he became undisputed authority 
on precedents, usage, and State laws affecting the auditor's duties. 
' He was also very busily engaged in the study of law at this 
time. A debating society, that inevitable necessity of American 
village life, was organized at South Bend in ISlo, and, on some 
one's suggestion, it was transferred into a moot State Legis- 
ture, of which Hon. J. D. Defrees, since government 2?rinter, 
was speaker, and young Colfex an active member. The rules 
of parliamentary debate, and the decisions of points of order, 
were followed with amusing punctiliousness in this body, and 
Colfax, Avho had improved his previous familiarity with these 
matters, by two years' service as Senate reporter for the State 
Journal, soon became the acknowledged authority on all 
parliamentary q^uestions, and Avas thus unconsciously qualifying 

himself for that post he has since so ably filled. 
17 



258 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

In ISrtS, he started a weekly journal at Soutli Bend, the 
county scat, with the title of the St. Joseph Valley Register, be- 
coming its sole proprietor and editor. In this connection it is 
doubtless proper to correct a mistake into which the public has 
fallen relative to Mr. Colfax's connection with the printing busi- 
ness. Mr. Lanman, in his Dictionary of Congress, says : — " He 
was bred a printer." lie never was apprenticed to the printing 
business, and knew nothing of the practical part of the " art pre- 
servative of all arts," until after he had commenced the publica- 
tion of the Register. "With his ready tact and quick perception, 
however, and great anxiety to economise, for his means were yet 
very limited, he soon mastered the art suf&ciently to " help out 
of the drag ;" but he never attained to any great proficiency in 
the business ; his editorial labors, the business of the office, and 
other duties, soon claiming his entire attention. 

The Register prospered, and soon became a source of profit to 
its proprietor. It was ably edited, and was a model of courtesy 
and dignity. Every paragraph, however small, seemed to have 
passed under the supervision, and to reflect the mind and ele- 
vated thoughts of its editor. 

How he toiled at this time, and what Avas the opinion of the 
people of South Bend of the young editor, are very pleasantly 
related by Mr. Samuel Wilkeson, in a speech at a press dinner, 
in Washington, in 1865, at which Mr. Colfax was an honored 
guest. 

" Eighteen years ago, at one o'clock of a winter moon-lighted 
morning, while the horses of the stage-coach in which I was 
plowing the thick mud of Indiana, were being changed at the 
tavern in South Bend, as I walked the footway of the principal 
street to shake off a great weariness, I saw a light through a 
window. A sign, ' The Register^' was legible above it, and I saw 
through the window a man in his shirt sleeves walking quickly 



HON. SCHUYLER COLFAX. 259 

about like one that worked. I paused, and k)okcd, and 
imagined about the man, and about his work, and about the 
lateness of the hour tc Avhiuli it was protracted ; and I wondered 
if he was in debt, and was struggling to get out, and if his wife 
was expecting him, and had lighted a new candle for his coming, 
and if he was very tired. A coming step interrupted this idle 
dreaming. When the walker reached my side, I joined birn, 
and as we went on I asked him questions, and naturally they were 
about the workman in the shirt sleeves. ' What sort of a man 
is he?' 'He is very good to the poor; he works hard ; he is 
sociable with all people ; he pays his debts ; he is a safe adviser; 
he doesn't drink whisky ; folks depend on him ; all this part of 
Indiana believes in him.' From that day to this, I have never 
taken up the South Bend Register without thinking of this 
eulogy, and envying the man who had justly entitled himself to 
it in the dawn of his manhood." 

Mr. Colfax himself, in his reply to this speech, acknowledged 
that in the early history of the newspaper, which numbered but 
two hundred and fifty subscribers when he established it, he 
was often compelled to labor far into the hours of the night. 
His paper was, from the first. Whig in its politics, and frank n nd 
outspoken in its expression of opinion on all political Cjuestions, 
but though in a district then strongly Democratic, and sur- 
rounded by Democratic papers which waged a constant, and often 
unscrupulous warfare against his paper and his principles, the 
constant readers of his paper cannot recall a single harsh or 
intemperate expression in his columns, in reply to the fierce 
personal attacks made upon him. 

In the year 18-iS, Mr. Colfax was appointed a delegate from 
his adopted State to the Whig National Convention, of which 
\\L was elected secretary, and although extremely yoimg, he 
discharged the functions c^ his office commendably. In 1S50, 



260 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

be was elected a member of the Indiana State Convention, hav- 
ing for its object the preparation of a State Constitution. Here 
ho persistently opposed the unmanly clause prohibiting freo 
colored men from entering the State. This clause, submitted 
separately to the people, was indorsed by majorities of eight 
thousand in his district' and ninety thousand in the State, yet, 
where a mere political trimmer would have waived the personal 
issue, he, like a man, openly voted Avith the niinorit}^, though he 
was at the time a candidate for Congress. In 1851, unanimously 
nominated from the ninth district of Indiana, he made a joint 
canvass with his opponent. Dr. Fitch, and, solely on account of 
this vote, was defeated by two hundred and sixteen majority, 
although the district had been Democratic, by large majorities, 
for many years. 

In 1852, he was again sent as a delegate to the Whig 
National Convention, of which also he was appointed secretary. 
In 1854, Mr. Colfax was elected to Congress as a Rei^ublican 
nominee ; and from that time to the present, he has always occu- 
pied his seat as a Representative. 

At the opening of the Thirty -fourth Congress occurred the 
memorable contest for the speakership, resulting in the election 
of Mr. Banks to that position. During that session Mr. Colfax 
took his stand as one of the most promising of our Congres- 
sional debaters. His speech, upon the then all-absorbing topic of 
the extension of slavery and the aggressions of the slave power, 
was a masterly effort, and stamped him at once as a most influ- 
ential orator. This speech was circulated throughout the coun- 
trv at the time, and was used as a campaign document by the 
Fremont party during the canvass of 1856. Five hundred 
thousand copies of it were issued, a compliment perhaps never 
before received by any member of Congress. 

Mr. Colfax labored zealously for John 0. Fremont, who waa 



HON. SCHJYLER COLFAX. 261 

his personal fneucl; the result of that campaign is well known. 
In the Thirty-lifth Congress, Mr. Colfax was elected to the im- 
portant position of Chairman to the Committee on Post Ofiices 
and Post Koads, whicli place he continued to hold until his elec- 
tion as Speaker to the Thirty-eighth Congress, on tlie 7th of 
December, 1853, to which responsible position he has since been 
twice re-elected — to the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses — 
honors awarded before only to Henry Clay. 

As Speaker of the House of Hepresentatives he is ready, 
seldom hesitating, to replace a word, or failing to touch the quick 
of a question, never employing any thing for stage effect; but 
straightforward, direct, and often exquisitely elegant in image 
and diction, he is, in the genuine sense, eloquent. His every 
speech is a success, and though one often wonders how he v.^ill 
extricate himself, in the varied and often untimely calls made 
upon his treasury, he always closes with added wealth of grati- 
fied admirers. If George Canning was once the Cicero of the 
British Senate, Schuyler Colfax is to-day that of the American 
House. 

In the chair, he is suave and forbearing almost to excess, but 
as impartial as the opposite Congressional clock. Nothing 
escapes him, nothing nonplusses him. The marvel of his pre- 
siding watchfulness is equaled alone by the intuitive; rapid solu- 
tion of the knotty point suddenly presented, and having either 
no precedent, or, at best, but a very distant one. In every quan- 
dary, the Indiana Legislature, or the Journal reporter, or the 
persistent student of Jefferson or Cushing, or all, rally to the 
rescue of the wondering House and still smiling chairman. The 
advocate is never confused with the judge. While presiding, 
it is as dif&cult to remember, as when debating to forget, that 
be is radically a Eadical. 

Ho was one of the first advocates, and is still one of the 



262 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

warmest friends, of the Pacific railroad. Indeed, he takes a 
warm interest in any movement looking to the develoiDment of 
the boundless resources of the great West. It was, doubtless, 
the interest he feels in this section of the country, which induced 
him to take his celebrated journey "Across the Continent." His 
trip was a perilous one, but his welcome at " the other end of the 
line" was so spontaneous, truly genuine and heartfelt, that it 
more than repaid him for all the dangers and hardships he passed 
through. This tour led him to prepare one of the most enter- 
taining lectures ever delivered in this country. It has been lis- 
tened to with rapt attention by the people of almost every city 
in the North. Pecuniarily, however, it has profited him but 
little, for with that liberality which has ever been a marked trait 
in his character, the entire proceeds of a lecture have as often 
been donated to some charitable object as they have found their 
wa}^ into his own pocket. 

His intimacy and confidential relations with Mr. Lincoln are 
well known. They labored hand in hand as brothers in the 
cause of the Union, holding frequent and protracted interviews 
on all subjects looking to the overthrow of the rebellion, for 
there were no divisions between the executive and legislative 
branches of the Government, then, as there are now. There was 
a patriot at the head of the Government then — a statesman who 
could give counsel, but often needed it as well. During the 
darkest hours of that bloody drama which shall ever remain a 
reproach upon the people of one section of the nation, they were 
ever cheerful and hopeful. Confident in the justness of the war 
waged for the preservation of the Union, and placing a Christian 
reliance in that Providence which guides and shapes the destiny 
of nations, great reverses, which caused others to fear and trem- 
'ole, at times almost to despair, seemed only to inspire them with 



HON. SCHUYLER COLFAX. 263 

greater zeal and a firmer "belief in tlie ultimate trnimpli of our 
cause. 

There has not been a great radical measure before the country, 
since his advent into Congress, that he has not supported with 
all the warmth of his ardent nature. But he is not one who 
will rush blindly forward into a pitfall. lie would rather make 
haste slowly, that no backward step may be necessary — he duly 
weigh, every measure in all its bearings, and from its various 
standpoints, before committing himself irrevocably to any par- 
ticular line of action relative to the subjects under considera- 
tion. Previous to his re-election as speaker of the Thirty-ninth 
Congress, in response to a serenade tendered him, he said : 

" The danger is in too much freciintation. Let us, rather, make 
haste slowly, and then we can hope that the foundation of our 
Government, when thus reconstructed on the basis of indisputa- 
ble loyalty, will be as eternal as the stars." 

Had this warning been heeded, much of the legislation of the 
Thirty-ninth Congress would have needed no revision at the 
hands of the one which has succeeded it. 

His course, while in the great council of the nation, has been 
one of straightforward, unswerving integrity; and he counts 
many friends among even his political opponents. He has so 
discharged the important duties of the speakership, that he is 
considered one of the best presiding officers that has ever been 
called upon to conduct the proceedings of a great body. 

Mr. Colfax is only forty-five years of age. In personal ap- 
pearance, he is of medium height, solid and compactly built. 
His hail and whiskers are brown, now a little tinged with gray. 
His countenance has a pleasing and intellectual expression. His 
person is graceful, and his manner denotes unusual energy. His 
eyebrows are light in color, and overshadow eyes which sparkle 
with intelligence and good-liurnor. He is strongly affectionate 



264 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

and kindly in disposition. Whenever his mother-in-law appears 
in the gallery of the House, Mr. Colfax generally calls some 
member to the chair, and goes immediately to her side. Such a 
trait in his character serves still further to deepen the respect 
and esteem in which he is held everywhere. 

As a speaker, ]\[r. Colfax is earnest, frank, pointed and fluent. 
His manner is pleasing, and his language is always well-chosen 
and refined. Urbane in demeanor, and courteous and fair to- 
ward opponents, he always commands respect and attention on 
both sides of the House. He is zealous and fearless in main- 
taining his principles, though his benevolence and good-humor 
so temper his speeches that he gains few or no enemies. He ia 
one of the few whose personal qualities have secured exemption 
from the bitterness of feeling generally displayed by the friends 
of pro-slavery aggression toward their opponents. He seldom 
indulges in oratorical flourish, but goes straight to his subject, 
which, with his keenly perceptive intellect, he penetrates to the 
oottom ; while his close, logical reasoning presents his aspect of 
a question in its strongest light. 

On the question, " Shall freedmen be citizens, and be allowed 
the right of suffrage?" he took an early opportunity of avowing 
his views. At the opening of the second session of the Thirty- 
ninth Congress, he said : " The Creator is leading us in his own 
way rather than our own. He has put all men on an equality 
before Divine law, and demands that we shall put all men apon 
the same equality before human law." 

In an address delivered in 1867, before the Union League 
club of New York, we find these eloquent passages : — 

" How rapidly and yet how gloriously we are making history ; 
Dut posterity will read it on the open pages of our country's an- 
nals. Six years ago — how brief it seems — but a fraction of an 
individual's life — but a breath in the life of a nation — the banners 



HON. SCHUYLER COLFAX 265 

of rebellion waved over the hostile armies and stolen forts from 
the Potomac to the Eio Grande, and the on looking woi-ld 
predicted the certain downfall of the Eepublic. Now, thanks 
to onr gallant armies and their gallant commanders— Grant the 
inflexible — Sherman the conqneror — Sheridan the invincible — 
and all their compatriots on sea and shore — but one flag waves 
over the land — the flag that Washington loved, and that Jack- 
son, and Scott, and Taylor adorned with their brilliant victories 
— the flag dearer to us in all its hours of peril than when gilded 
bv the sunshine of prosperity and fii,nncd by the zephyrs of 
peace, at last triumphant, unquestioned, unassailed. Six years 
ago, millions of human beings born on American soil, created 
by the same Divine Father, destined to the same eternal here- 
after, were subject to sale like the swine of the sty, or the beasts 
of the field, and our escutcheon was dimmed and dishonored 
by the stain of American Slavery. To-day^ auction-blocks, and 
manacles, and whipping-posts are, thank God, things of the 
past, while the slave himself has become the citizen, with the 
freedman's weapon of protection — the ballot — in his own right 
hand. Nor can we forget, Avhilc rejoicing over this happy 
contrast, the human agencies so potential to its accomplishment. 
First, and conspicuous among the rest, rises before my mind the 
tall form of a martyred President, whose welcome step no 
moruil ear shall ever listen to again. Faithful to his oath, 
faithful to his country, faithful to the brave armies his word 
called to the field, he never swerved a hair's breadth from his 
determination to crush this mighty rebellion, and all that gives 
it aid, and comfort, and support. Unjustly and bitterly de- 
nounced, by his enemies and yours, as a usurper and despot ; 
compared to Nero and Caligula, and all other tyrants whose 
base deeds blacken the pages of history, your noble League 
Btood by him amid this tempest of detraction, cordially and to 



266 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

the end; and you have now your abundant vindication and 
reward. Though the torch of slander was lit at every avenue 
of his public life while he lived, the civilized world would 
become mourners at his coffin ; and with those libelous tongues 
hushed, oar whole land enshrines his memory to-day with the 
Father of the Country he saved," 

•»•»** -^ •5s- •«■ 

" I cannot doubt the future of the great party which has won 
these triumphs and established these principles. It has been so 
brilliantly successful, because it recognized liberty and justice 
as its cardinal principles ; and because, scorning all prejudices 
and defying all opprobrium, it allies itself to the cause of the 
humble and the oppressed. It sought to enfranchise, not to 
enchain ; to elevate, not to tread down ; to protect, never to 
abuse. It cared for the humblest rather than for the mis;htiest 
— for the weakest rather than the strongest. It recognized 
that the glory of states and nations was justice to the poorest 
and feeblest. And another secret of its wondrous strength was 
that it fully adopted the striking injunction of our murdered 
chief: ' With malice toward none, with charity for all, but with 
firmness for the right, as God gives us to see the right,' Only 
last month the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, in defend- 
ing his Eeform bill, which holds the word of promise to the ear 
to break it to the hope, exclaimed: ' This is a nation of classes, 
and must remain so.' If I may be pardoned for replying, I 
would sa}^ : ' This is a nation oi freemen^ and it must remain so,' 
Faithful to the traditions of our fathers in sympathizing with 
all Avlio long for the maintenance or advancement of liberty in 
Mexico or England, in Ireland or Crete, and yet carefully 
avoiding all entangling alliances or violations of the law, with a 
recognition fro'u ocean to ocean, North and South alike, of the 
right of all citizens bound by the law to share in the choice of 



HON. SCnUYLER COLFAX. 2(3'? 

tliu law-maker, and thus to have a voice in the country their 
heart's blood must defend, our centennial anniversary of the 
Declaration of Independence will find us as an entire nation, 
recognizing the great truths of that immortal Mcvjna Chwta, 
enjoying a fame wide as the world and eternal as the stars, 
with a prosperity that shall eclipse in future all the brightest 
glories of the past." 

Eeligion gained the early adherence of Mr. Colfax, who many 
years ago began a Christian life, joining the Dutch fieformed 
Church, and serving humbly and usefully as a Sunday school 
teacher for twelve years. The " pious passages" so frequent in 
his public speeches are not mere sentiment or oratorical arts, 
for he loves to talk, in private, of how God rules and how 
distinctly and hoAV often, in our history, his holy arm has been 
revealed ; and the ascription of praise comes from a worship- 
ping heart, reliant on God through Christ. His personal ex- 
ample at "Washington is luminous. When twenty, he made 
vows of strict abstinence, which have never been broken. 
Liquors and wines are never used at his receptions, while 
Presidential dinners and diplomatic banquets are utterly power- 
less to abate one jot or tittle of his firmness. Many of our 
readers well remember his speech at a Congressional temper- 
ance meeting, and how he banished the sale of liquor from 
all parts of the Capitol within his jurisdiction. 

On the 21st of May, 1868, the National Eepublican Union 
Convention, in session at Chicago, nominated Mr. Colfax as 
their candidate for the vice-presidency, on the fifth ballot, his 
name receiving five hundred and twenty-two votes out of the 
six hundred and fifty polled. 

To this nomination, all the people will doubtless say 
"Amen." 



HON. WILLIAM PITT FESSENDEN. 




jILLIAM PITT FESSENDEN, for nearly a year, during 
the war, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, 
and now, as well as previous to liis holding that ofl&ce, 
United States Senator from Maine, bears the reputation 
of being one of the most accomplished scholars, and the ablest 
financier of the Senate. He was born in Boscawen, Merrimac 
county, New Hampshire, October 16, 1806. lie was of an ex- 
cellent family, his father, Hon. Samuel Fessenden, as well as 
other relatives, having done the State good service. 

From early childhood he was addicted to study, and at the 
age of thirteen, entered Bowdoin college, Brunswick, Maine, 
where he graduated with high honors, in 1823. He at once 
turned his attention to legal studies, and was admitted to the 
bar, on attaining his majority in 1827. He practiced his pro- 
fession for two years in Bridgeton, Maine, and in 1820 removed 
to Portland, Maine, where he has since resided. In 1831, he 
was elected to the Maine Legislature, and though its youngest 
member, he soon distinguished himself, both as an orator and a 
legislator. A speech of his in this Legislature, in the discus- 
sion concerning the Bank of the United States, was referred to, 
for years, as evincing extraordinary ability and eloquence. 
From 1832 to 1839, Mr. Fessenden declined all political office, 

and devoted himself exclusively to his profession, in which he 
268 



HON. WILLIAM TITT FESSEXDEN. 209 

rapidly rose to the first rank iu his State, both as a counsellor 
and advocate. He was offered a nomination to Congress, as 
early as 1831, but refused it. In 1839 he was again elected to 
the State Legislature, as a representative of the city of Portland. 
lie was, as he had been from his first entrance upon public life, 
a Whig, but such was the conviction of his ability, that though 
the Democrats were largely in the majority in the Legislature, 
the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee was assigned to 
him, and he was, beside, chosen president of a special commis- 
sion, to revise and codify the statutes of the State. 

In 18-10, he received the nomination, by acclamation, of his 
party, for Eepresentative in Congress, and was elected by a 
handsome majority, though the district had previously been 
Democratic. He acquitted himself with great honor, taking 
part in the more important debates, and attracting attention, by 
the soundness of his views, the clearness of his logic, his elo- 
quence and sarcasm, but at the close of his term declined a re- 
nomination, and returned with new zest to his profession, of 
which he seemed never to weary. He sat in the State Legisla- 
ture in 1815 and 1846, but declined any other public office. In 
1815, the "Whigs in the Legislature, though iu a minority, com- 
])limented him with their vote for United States Senator. From 
this time onward, for seven years, his already national reputation 
in his profession kept him constantly and profitably employed. 
During this period he was associated with Daniel Webster m 
an important case before the Supreme Court at Washington, in- 
volving a legal question never before discussed in that court, 
viz. : how far the fraudulent acts of an auctioneer in selling 
property, should affect the owner of the property sold, he being- 
no party to the fraud. Mr. Fessenden had to contend against 
the weight and influence of Judge Story's opinion and decision 
against his client in the court below. He was successful and 



270 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

Judge iStory's decision was reversed. His argument ou that 
occasion was remarkable for its logical force and legal acuteness, 
and won the highest admiration of the court and the eminent 
lawyers in attendance. 

In 1850, Mr. Fessenden was elected to Congress, but the seat 
was given to his competitor, through an error in the returns, 
and Mr. Fessenden declined to contest it, from his unwillingness 
to serve in that body, the nomination having been forced upon 
him, against his declared wishes. In 1840, he was a member 
of the national convention, which nominated General Harrison 
for the presidency ; in 1848 of that which nominated General 
Taylor, and in 1852 of the convention which nominated General 
Scott. In 1848, he had supported Mr. Webster, but in 1852, 
he voted against him, on account of his. recently declared opin- 
ions on the fugitive slave laAV compromise and other topics. 
In the convention of 1852, he was one of the sixty-seven who 
opposed and voted against the platform, at that time set up by 
the AVhig party. In 1853 he was again elected a member of the 
State Legislature, and was chosen United States Senator, by the 
Senate, but the House, being Democratic, failed to concur, and 
no Senator was chosen. The House, however, though opposed 
to him in politics, associated him with the Hon. Eeuel Williams 
in the purchase of a large body of wild lands of Massachusetts, 
Ij'ing in Maine, which was successfully accomplished. 

In 1854, Mr. Fessenden was again a member of the Legislature, 
which was Democratic in botli branches. The Kansas-Nebraska 
question, operating to produce a division among the Demo- 
crats, Mr. Fessenden was chosen United States Senator on the 
first ballot, by a union of the AVhigs and free soil Democrats. 
Though he declined to be elected except as a Whig, this event 
may be said to have been the preliminary step toward establish- 
ing the Republican party in Maine, the necessity of which new 



HON. WILLIAM PITT FESSENDEN. 271 

organization, after the action of the main body of southern 
Whigs on the Nebraska bill, Mr, Fessenclcn was one of the first 
to proclaim and advocate. He took his seat in the Senate, 
February 23, 1854, and on the night of March 3, following, at 
which time the bill was passed, delivered one of the most elec- 
tric and effective speeches made against it. This effort esta- 
blished liis reputation at once, as one of the ablest members of 
the Senate. Of his subsequent speeches in the Senate, during 
his first senatorial term, the most important were: on a bill to 
protect United States oflicers (1855) ; on our relations with 
England ; on Kansas affairs ; on the president's message (1856) ; 
on the Iowa senatorial election (1857) ; and on the Lecompton 
Constitution (1858). He also took a prominent part in the 
general debates and business of the Senate, and was a leading 
member of the finance committee. In 1859, he was re-elected 
United States Senator for six years, by a unanimous vote of his 
party in the Legislature, without the formality of a previous 
nomination, it being the first instance of the kind in the history 
of the State. In the distribution of committees in the Senate, 
he was at once made chairman of the Committee on Finance, and 
of the Library Committee, and appointed one of the Regents of 
the Smithsonian Institution. Bowdoin college, his alma mater, 
had, in 1858, conferred on him the degree of LL. D. ; Harvard 
university bestowed the same honor upon him in 1864. In 
1861, he was appointed one of the members of the peace confer- 
ence, which met in February of that year. During the war, 
while in the Senate, Mr. Fessenden upheld the national caiise 
with great vigor and ability, and as chairman of the finance 
committee, aided, so far as was in his power, the patriotic efforts 
of Secretary Chase, to maintain the national credit and honor. 
Owing to impaired health, he took a less active part in the sena- 



272 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

torial debates than in previous years, but he was never remiss 
in attention to his duties, in relation to the finances. 

On the 30th of June, 1864, Mr. Chase, Avho had managed with 
great ability the financial affairs of the nation, under circumstan- 
ces of extraordinary difficulty, resigned his secretaryship. This 
resignation created instant alarm, and gold, which had stood at 
S6 premium on the 28th of June, and 90 on the 30th, rose 
rapidly until it reached 185 premium on the 11th of July. 
Mr. Lincoln nominated Mr. Fessenden at once to the vacant 
secretaryship, but he was very reluctant to accept it, both on 
account of the precarious state of his health, which rendered 
the performance of the duties of such a position almost iiiijiossi- 
ble, and because of its great difficulties and fearful responsibili- 
ties. After some days' deliberation, however, he yielded to the 
urgencies of the other Senators and cabinet officers, and entered 
upon his duties on the 5th of July, 1864. 

The situation was indeed critical. Specie payments had been 
long since suspended, and with tlie increasing emission of legal- 
tender notes, and the various forms of loans which the exigen- 
cies of the war had rendered necessary, the currency had rapidly 
depreciated, till, as we have said, gold stood, six days after Mr. 
Fessenden accepted office, at one hundred and eighty-five dol- 
lars premium, or, in other words, the paper dollar wms worth 
only about thirty-four cents. Provision had, indeed, been made 
by Secretary Chase for the sale of new loans, the five-twenty 
bonds and the seven-thirty treasury notes fundable in three 
years in the five-twenty bonds, with six per cent, interest paya- 
ble in coin, but the sale of these was as yet slow. Except Ger- 
many, Ilolland, and Switzerland, the foreign markets would not 
deal in our bonds, and there was a general apprehension abroad 
of our national bankruptcy. To this two causes had greatly 
contributed : the utter worthlcssness of the bonds of the so- 



nON. WILLIAM riTT FESSKNDLX. 273 

called Southern Confederacy, wliieh naturally, though unjustly, 
threw discredit on our securities; and the want oi' military suc- 
cess, notwithstanding- the frightiui and rapidly accunudating 
expenditure, whicli now aniounted to from two and a half to 
three millions of dollars per day. The vast armies in the field, 
and the great naval force afloat, could not be maintained without 
immense resources, and they could not be reduced until the 
rebellion was subdued. 

For Mr. Fesseuden, then, the problems to be solved were 
these: to raise promptly, as needed, the very large sums of 
money wanted for the efficient prosecution of the war, and, at 
the same time, to enhance the national credit and reputation to 
such an extent that the bonds, treasury and legal-tender notes 
should approximate more nearly to the value of coin. AVith 
the army and navy well and promptly paid, and by the oftering 
of bounties, kept up to the highest standard of efficiency, it 
might reasonably be hoped that victories would come, and a few 
of these would be sufficient to finish the war. 

Mr. E'essenden wisely judged that it was best to make a frank 
and manly appeal to the nation, whose patriotism had never 
flagged during the war, to subscribe liberally to the public loans, 
and especially to those known as seven-tliirties, which were con- 
vertible, at the end of three years, into six per cent, five-twenty 
bonds, tlie interest of which last was payable in coin. This 
appeal, seconded by the energetic advertising sy.stem of Mr. Jay 
Cooke, whom Mr. Fessenden, like his predecessor, had intrusted 
with the sale of the loans, soon brougiit a sufficiency of funds 
into the treasury, without the necessity of attempting to procure 
loans from abroad, and the European bankers were soon eager 
lo buy those bonds which a few months before they had refa.-,od 
with scorn. He avoided, meanwhile, any fiirther issue of legul- 

tender notes, or i/rcnbacks, as they were popitlarly called, and, 
13 



274 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

by conciliatory representations, soothed the irritation of the 
State banking institutions, and induced them to adopt the na- 
tional system, to which they had hitherto been averse. This 
was a consummate stroke of policy, for it at once secured a 
market for nearly three hundred and fifty millions of the bonds, 
and removed the State currency from the market, substituting 
for it national bank notes, which were at par all over the coun- 
try. In the purchase of the bonds, too, the legal-tender notes 
were paid into the treasury, to such an extent, that the Govern- 
ment held in its own hands the power of reducing, as fast as 
seemed necessary, the volume of circulation. 

This admirable financial management, aided by the great suc- 
cesses of our arms on sea and laud, soon enhanced the value of 
the legal-tender currency, and, on the 4th of March, 1865, when 
Mr. Fessenden resigned the secretaryship, to return to the Sen- 
ate, gold was at niuety-nine per cent, premium, and on the 11th 
of May following, had fallen to thirty per cent. 

Another part of Mr. Fessenden's financial system had reference 
to a more comprehensive and effective system of taxation. Con- 
gress, during Mr. Chase's secretaryship, had hesitated to levy so 
large and severe taxes as the emergency demanded, and though 
he had urged it with all his eloquence and ability, they had 
always fallen far short of what he had assured them was neces 
sary. But when Mr. Fessenden, who had been one of them- 
selves, and knew all the objections they could urge against rais- 
ing the larger part of the required revenue by direct taxation, 
assured them that heavy taxes were indispensable, they came up 
to the mark, and were astonished to find how readily the people 
responded. 

On the 4:th of March, 1865, Mr, Fessenden, having meantime 
been re-elected to the Senate for six years from that date, re- 
sign(?d his office as Secretary of the Treasury, and took his seat 



HON, WILLIAM PITT FESSENDEN. 275 

again in the Senate chamber, and was immediately appointed 
chairman of the finance committee. 

Mr. Fessenden has, since that time, continued an active and 
able member of the Senate, participating in its debates, espe- 
cially on questions of finance and reconstruction. He has dif- 
fered somewhat, though not radically, from other members of 
the Republican party on the latter question, and though he 
speaks with much of his former fire and earnestness, years of 
infirm health have somewhat impaired the amenity of his tem- 
per, and there is, at times, a bitterness and imperious tone in his 
speeches, which not even his rare abilities and extensive culture 
can wholly justify.* 

Yet he is, withal, one of the ablest of the " men of our day." 
In wide and generous scholarship, in profound legal attain- 
ments, and in eminent financial knowledge and capacity, he is 
the peer of any man in the Senate. With the added grace of a 
kindly and genial disposition, he might easily rule all hearts, 
and win for himself a deathless fame. 

* His action on the question of the conviction of Mr. Johnson in the 
impeachment trial, has disappointed and distressed all his friends, to whom 
it was entirely unexpected. That it shoiild have excited strong and severe 
denunciation, was inevitable, and though the motives which influenced 
him are as yet inexplicable, his whole past history and his elevated per- 
sonal character prohibit the belief that they were sordid or mercenary. 
It has been attributed also to personal animosity, and to disappointed 
ambitnnn • but we hope these motives had as little weight as the other. 



HON. JAMES HARLAN. 




;0N. JAMES HARLAj^, late Secretary of the Interior, 
and now United States Senator from Iowa, was born in 
Clark county, Illinois, August 26th, 1820. When he 
was three years of age his parents removed to Indiana, 
where he was employed during his minority in assisting his 
father upon the farm. His early advantages of education were 
small but they were improved to the utmost. In the year 1841, 
he entered the preparatory department of Asbury University, 
then under the presidency of the present Bishop Simpson. 
He graduated from the university with honor, in 1845, having 
paid his way by teaching, at intervals, during his college course. 
In the winter of 18-i5-6, he was elected professor of lan- 
guages in Iowa City college, and removed thither. He soon 
became popular in the city and State, and in 18-17 was elected 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction. His competitor 
for this office was Hon. Charles Mason, a distinguished gradu- 
ate of West Point, who had served as Chief Justice of the 
Federal court of Iowa Territory during the whole period of its 
existence, a gentleman of great ability and unblemished reputa- 
tion, and the nominee of the Democratic party, who had been, 
and subsequently were, the dominant party in the State. His 
election over such a competitor was highly creditable to him, 
especially as he had been a resident of the State but two years. 



HON. JAMES HARLAN. 277 

In 184:8, Mr. Harlan was superseded by Thomas H. Benton, 
Jr., who was reported by tlie canvassing officers elected })y 
seventeen majority. The count was subsequently conceded 
to have been fraudulent, tliougli Mr. Benton was not cognizant 
of the fraud. Mr. Harlan had been for some time en2;a2;ed in 
the study of law, in his intervals of leisure, and now applied 
himself to it more closely, and was admitted to the bar in 1848, 
He continued the practice of his profession for five years, and 
was eminently successful in it. During this period (in 1849) 
he was nominated by his party for governor, but not being of 
the constitutional age for that office, he declined the nomination. 

In 1853, he was elected, by the annual conference of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, President of the Mount Pleasant 
Collegiate Institute, which during the winter following was 
re-organized under an amended charter as a university, and 
Mr. Harlan was retained in the presidency. His energy and 
industry found full scope in this position, and for the next two 
years the university grew and prospered. 

On the 6th of January, 1855, without any candidacy, or even 
knowledge of his nomination, Mr. Harlan was elected by the 
Legislature, United States Senator from Iowa, for the six years 
commencing March 4th, 1855. As a pretended informality in 
this election was made the occasion of his being unseated by 
the Democratic majority in the United States Senate, two years 
later, it may be well to give a somewhat more detailed account 
of this election. In accordance with the custom and the Con- 
stitution of Iowa, th-e Senate and House of Represenatives of 
the Iowa Legislature met, in joint session, soon after tlie first 
of January, 1855, to elect a Senator and judges. The two 
parties were nearly balanced in both houses, and at first there 
was no election; they adjourned from day to day, when the 
Democrats found that a majority could be obtained on joint 



278 MEN OF OUR DAT. 

ballot for Mr. Harlan as Senator, and to prevent this, the 
Democratic members of tlie State Senate withdrew, intending 
thereby to render an election void. But as the Democratic 
members of the House remained, there was a quorum of the 
joint session present, and Mr. Harlan was elected by a clear 
majority of both houses. 

On his election to the Senate, Mr. Harlan resigned the 
presidency of the university, but accepted the professorship of 
political economy and international law, to which he was 
immediately elected, and which he still holds. 

He took his seat in the United States Senate, December 3d, 
1855, and his first formal speech was made on the 27th of 
March, 1856, on the question of the admission of Kansas. It 
was pronounced at the time, by both friends and foes, the ablest 
argument on that side of the question delivered during the pro- 
tracted debate. Later in the session, on the occasion of his 
presenting the memorial of James H. Lane, praying the accept- 
ance of the petition of the members of the Kansas territorial 
Legislature, for the admission of their territory into the Union 
as a State, he administered a most scathing rebuke to the 
Democratic majority in the Senate for their tyrannical and 
oppressive course in regard to Kansas. The Kepublicans at 
this time numbered but a baker's dozen in the Senate, and it 
had been the fashion with the Democratic majority to refuse 
intercourse, and a place on the committees, to some of them on 
the ground that they were outside of any healthy political 
organization. They had been disposing, as they hoped, forever, 
of the Eepublican leader in the Senate (Mr. Sumner), by the 
use of the bludgeon, and they were greatly enraged at the 
castigation which they now received from another member 
of the little band, and resolved to rid themselves of him also. 
For this purpose, nursing their wrath to keep it warm, they 



HOX. JAMES IIARLAX. 279 

called up the action of tlio Democrats of tlie Iowa Senate 
to which we have ah'cady alluded, and early in the second 
session of the Thirty-fourth Congress, introduced a resolution 
that " James Ilarlan is not entitled to his seat as a Senator from 
Iowa." The resolution was fiercely debated, but the majority, 
confident in their strength, passed it by a full party vote on the 
12th of January, 1857. 

Their triumph was short. Immediately on the passage of 
the resolution Mr. Harlan left Washington for Iowa City, 
where the State Legislature, now unmistakably Republican, was 
in session; he arrived there on Friday evening, January 16th. 
On the next day, Saturday, he was re-elected by both houses 
to the Senate, spent a few days at his home in Mount Pleasant, 
returned to "Washington, was re-sworn, and resumed liis seat on 
the 29th of January. The next session of Congress brought 
valuable additions to the strength of the Republican party in 
the Senate, but it had no truer member than Mr. Ilarlan, and 
his fearlessness, conscientiousness, industry, integrity, and 
ability as a debater, made him an acknowledged leader in it. 
In 1861, he was re-elected for the term ending March -ith, 1867, 
without a dissenting voice in his party at home. 

He was a member of the Peace Congress in 1861, but after 
seeing the liiembers sent from the slave States, and witnessing 
the election of Ex-President John Tj-ler presiding officer, 
he predicted that its deliberations would end in a miserable 
failure. 

During the whole course of the war, he Avas the earnest sup- 
porter of President Lincoln, whose personal friendship he en- 
joyed ; and through all the light and gloom of that dark pcric^l, 
his faith in the right never faltered, and his activity and zeal 
were not checked by depressing emotions. He and his accom 
plished and gifted wife were throughout the war among the 



280 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

most active lielpers in the work of the Sauitary and Christian 
Commissions^ ministering in person to the wounded, and aiding, 
with pen and purse, the efforts for their welfare. 

As a Senator, as the published debates of Congress show, he 
argued and elucidated with great clearness and conclusiveness 
every phase of the question of slavery and emancipation, in 
all their social, legal and economic ramifications — the exclusion 
of slavery from the territories — the constitutional means of 
restriction — climatic influences on the races, white and black — 
the necessity or propriety of colonization — and the effects of 
emancipation on the institutions of the country North and 
South. 

He was the earnest advocate of the early construction of the 
Pacific Railroad — had made himself, by a careful examination, 
master of the whole subject — was consequently appointed a 
member of the " Senate Committee on the Pacific Railroad ;" 
and when the two bodies differed as to the details of the bill, he 
was made chairman of the committee of conference of the two 
houses, and did more than any other living man to reconcile 
conflicting views on the amended bill which afterwards became 
the law of the land. 

As chairman of the Committee on Public Lands, he exerted 
a controlling influence in shaping the policy of the Government 
in the disposition of the public domain, so as to aid in the 
construction of railroads, and the improvement of other avenues 
of intercourse, as well as to advance the individual interests of 
the frontier settler, by facilitating his acquisition of a landed 
estate, and also by securing a permanent fund for the support 
of common schools for tlie masses, and other institutions of 
learning. Under his guidance the laws for the survey, sale, 
and pre-emption of the public lands were harnioni25ed, and the 
homestead bil so modified, as to render it a practical and 



HON. JAMES HARLAN. 281 

beneficent measure for the indigent settler, and at tlie same 
time but slightly, if at all, detrimental to the public treasury. 
And on this as well as that other great national measure, the 
Pacific Railroad bill, above mentioned, when the two houses 
disagreed as to details, Mr. Harlan was selected by the Presi- 
dent of the Senate, to act as chairman of the committee of 
conference. 

His thorough acquaintance with the land laws, his clear 
perception of the principles of justice and equity wliich should 
control in their administration, and his unwearied industry and 
care in the examination of all claims presented to Congress 
growing out of the disposition of the public lands to private 
citizens, corporations, or States — caused him to be regarded 
almost in the light of an oracle, by his compeers in the Senate, 
whenever any of these claims were pending ; his statements, of 
fact were never disputed, and his judgment almost always 
followed. 

Immediately after he was placed upon the Senate Committee 
on Indian ASliirs, it became manifest that he had made himself 
master of that whole subject in all of its details. lie conse- 
quently exercised a leading influence on the legislation of 
Congress affecting our intercourse with these children of the 
forest; humanity and justice to them, as well as the safety of 
the frontier settlements from savage warfare, v/ith him were cardi- 
nal elements, to guide him in shaping the policy of the Govern- 
ment. The effect of the repeal, over Mr. Harlan's earnest protest, 
of the beneficent features of the Indian intercourse laws, under 
the lead of Senator Hunter, which, all admit, laid the foundation 
for our recent Indian wars, furnishes a marked illustration of 
the safety of his counsels in these afiairs. 

As a member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, he waa 
the earnest advocate of every measure calculated to develop 



282 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

and advance that great national interest, and prepared the only 
report, marked by scientific researcli, made on that subject by 
the Senate Committee during the last ten years. He gave his 
earnest support to the Agricultural College bill, though in con- 
flict with his views of the proper policy for the disposition of 
the public lands, because he regarded it as the only opportu- 
nity for laying firmly the foundation for these nurseries of 
scientific agriculture, which must prove of vast consequence 
for good, to the whole people of this continent, and the toiling 
millions of the old world. 

Though never unjust or illiberal toward the older and more 
powerful members of the Union, he has ever been the vigilant 
guardian of the peculiar interests of the new States, including 
his own. He has also been a no less vigilant guardian of the 
public treasury, though never lending himself to niggardly and 
parsimonious measures. 

His inauguration of the proposition for the construction of a 
ship canal from the northern lakes to the waters of the 
Mississippi (see Congress. Globe, 2d session, 36 Congress, Part 
I.) ; his opposition to legislation on the Sabbath ; his introduc- 
tion of resolutions on fasting and prayer ; his propositions for 
reform in the chaplain service of the army and navy ; in aid of 
foreign emigration; the reconstruction of the insurrectionary 
States ; the reclamation of the Colorado desert ; the improvement 
of navigation of lakes and rivers ; the application of meteorolo- 
gical observations in aid of agriculture to land as well as sea ; 
for the support of scientific explorations and kindred measures ; 
for reform in criminal justice in the District of Columbia and 
in the territories ; and his remarks on such subjects as the bank- 
rupt bill; the Kentucky Yolunteers bill; the bill to re-organize 
the Court of Claims ; on the resolution relating to Floyd's accept- 
ances; on the bill to indemnify the President ; on the cori.<cr'p- 



HON. JAMES HARLAN. 283 

tion bill ; on the conditions of release of State prisoners ; on the 
disqualification of color in carrying the n>ails ; on the organiza- 
tion of territories ; on amendment to the Constitution ; on the 
district registration bill ; on bill to establish Freedmen's Bureau ; 
on inter-continental telegraph ; on bill providing bail in certain 
cases of military arrests ; on the construction of railroads ; on 
education in the District of Columbia for white and colored 
children ; on the Income Tax bill ; altogether furnish an indica- 
tion of the range of his acquirements, the tendency of hig 
thoughts, and the breadth of his views, which cannot otherwise 
be given in a sketch necessarily so brief as to exclude copious 
extracts from published debates. 

Among his numerous eloquent and elaborate speeches in the 
Senate, we have only room for a brief abstract of one, which 
must serve as a sample of the whole. It is that delivered in 
reply to Senator Himter of Virginia, during the winter of 18 GO- 
BI, immediately preceding the first overt acts of the rebellion. 
This speech was characteristic in clearness, method, directness, 
force, and conclusiveness, and was regarded, by his associates in 
the Senate, as the great speech of the session. In the commence- 
ment, he examined and exposed, in their order, every pretext 
for secession, and proceeded to charge upon the authors of the 
then incipient rebellion, with unsurpassed vigor and force, that 
the loss of political power was their real grievance. lie indi- 
cated the impossibility of any compromise, on the terms proposed 
by the southern leaders, without dishonor, and pointed out the 
means of an adjustment alike honorable to the South and the 
North, requiring no retraction of principle on the part of any 
one, by admitting the territories into the Union as States. He 
warned the South against a resort to an arbitrament of the 
sword ; predicted the impossibility of their sec iring a division 
of the States of the northwest from the Middle and New Eng- 



284 MEN OF OUR DAY, 

land States • tlie certainty and comparative dispatcli witli wliich 
an armed rsbellion would be crushed, and concluded with a 
most powerful appeal to these conspii^ators not to plunge the 
country into such a sea of blood. Upon the conclusion of this 
speech four fifths of the Union Senators crowded around to con- 
gratulate him, and a state of excitement prevailed on the floor 
of the Senate for some moments, such as had seldom if ever 
before been witnessed in that body. 

He was selected by the Union members of the House and 
Senate as a member of the Union Congressional committee for 
the management of the presidential campaign of 186-i. Being 
the only member of the committee on the part of the Senate 
who devoted his whole time to this work, he became the active 
organ of the committee — organized an immense working force, 
regulated its finances with ability and unimpeachable fidelity, 
employed a large number of presses in Washington, Balti- 
more, Philadelphia, and New York, in printing reading matter 
for the masses, which resulted in the distribution of many mil- 
lions of documents among the people at home, and in all 
our great armies. To his labors the country was, doubtless, 
largely indebted, for the triumphant success of the Union can- 
didates. 

With the foregoing record, it is not remarkable that he 
should have been selected by that illustrious statesman and 
patriot, Abraham Lincoln, immediately preceding his lamented 
death, for the distinguished office of Secretary of the Interior. 

Mr. Harlan's nomination was unanimously confirmed by the 
body of which he was at the time an honored m.ember, without 
the usual reference to a committee. But, immediately after the 
accession of Mr. Johnson to the presidency, with a delicacy 
and sense of propriety worthy of imitation, he tendered his 
declination of this high office. This not being accepted, Mr. 



HON. JAMES HARLAN. 285 

Harlan did not deem it proper, iu the disturbed condition of 
public affairs, to make it peremptory, and, in accordance -with 
the President's expressed desire, and the demands of the national 
welfare, resigned his scat in the Senate, and entered on the dis- 
charge of tlie duties of the position, May 15th, 1865. Mr. 
Harlan's great familiarity with the laws pertaining to the de- 
partment of which he had now become the leading spirit, not 
only enabled him fully to meet public expectation in the admin- 
istration of its affairs, but to establish it upon a basis of useful- 
ness, hitherto unknown in its history. 

The fact becoming manifest to the people of Iowa, that Mr. 
Harlan could not long remain as a confidential adviser of Presi- 
dent Johnson, on account of the early and repeated aberrations of 
the latter from the cardinal principles of the political party by 
whom he had been elected to the vice -presidency, and not being 
disposed to dispense with the services of so faithful a public ser- 
vant, he was re-elected by the Legislature of 1866, to his old 
seat in the United States Senate. The following August he 
resigned the office of Secretary of the Interior, and re-entered 
the Senate Chamber on the 4th of March, 1867, with the full 
period of six years before him. He was immediateiy appointed 
chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia, also 
chairman of the joint committee of the two Houses of Con- 
gress to audit expenses of executive mansion, and was assigned 
to membership on the important committees of Foreign Eela- 
tions. Pacific railroad, and Post Offices, and Post roads, respec- 
tively. 

No better evidence can be found in the history of any states- 
man in the country, whether his public services or his private 
character be viewed, that the duties of high official position 
have been ably, conscientiously and faithfully executed, than in 
the instance before us. Even party malignity, seldom scr ipu- 



286 MEN OF OUR DAT. 

lous as to the weapons it employs against a powerful adversary, 
has uniformly been too prudent to weaken itself by charging, 
even in innuendo, that Mr. Harlan was ever guilty of any of 
the corruptions, peculations and deceptions that so frequently 
mark the modern politician. 



HON. CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, 

UNITED STATES MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY TO ENGLAND. 




(tIIIS eminent diplomatist comes of an illustrious lineage. 
The only son of John Quincy Adams, sixth President 
of the Eepublic, who survived his father, and the grand- 
son of John Adams, the second President of the United 
States, he inherits patriotic sentiments, fjid has done honor, m 
his public career, to some of the noblest names in our nation's 
past history. 

Charles Francis Adams was born in Boston, Massachusetts, 
August 18, 1807. At the age of two years, he was taken by his 
father to St, Petersburg, where he remained for the next six 
years, his father being United States Minister a*t the Eussian 
Court. During his residence at the Eussian capital, he learned 
to speak the Eussian, German and French, as well as the English. 
In February, 1815, he made the perilous journey from St. Pe- 
tersburg to Paris, with his mother, in a private carriage, to meet 
his father. The intrepidity of Mrs. Adams, in undertaking such 
a journey in midwinter, and when all Europe was in a state of 
commotion, gave evidence that the courage and daring which her 
son inherited, were not all due to the father's side. 

John Quincy Adams was next appointed Minister to England, 
and during his residence there, he placed Charles at a boarding 
school, where, in accordance with the brutal practices in vogue 

in the English schools, he was obliged to fight his English 

287 



288 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

schoolfellows in defence of the honor of America. But, /onng 
as he was, he was too plucky to be beaten, and maintained his 
country's cause with as much valor, though probably Avith less 
intelligence, than he has since been called to exercise in ita 
behalf. 

In 1817, his father was recalled to America, to become Secre- 
tary of State in President Monroe's administration, and young 
Adams, on his return, was placed in the Boston Latin school, 
from whence he entered Harvard College, in 1821, and gradu- 
ated there with honor in 1825. His father was at this time 
President, and the son spent the next two years in "Washington ; 
but, in 1827, returned to Massachusetts, and commenced the 
study of the law in the office of Daniel Webster. He was ad- 
mitted to the bar in 1828, but did not engage actively in 
practice. 

In 1829, Mr. Adams married a daughter of Peter C. Brooks, 
an opulent merchant of Boston, another of whose daughters was 
the wife of Hon. Edward Everett. He was nominated, in 1830, 
as Eepresentative in the Massachusetts Legislature ; but he had 
no political aspirations, and declined to be a candidate. At his 
father's request, however, he consented to be a candidate the 
next year, and was elected for three years successively, and was 
then chosen State Senator for two years. His sentiments were 
at this time more decidedly anti-slavery than those of most of 
the leading Whigs of Boston and its vicinity, and as ho avowed 
them freel}', and did not seek or desire political preferment, he 
was suffered to remain in private life, and busy himself, as he 
desired to do, with literary pursuits. During this period he 
edited the letters of Mrs. John Adams, contributed frequent and 
very able articles to the North American JRevieio and the Christian 
Examiner, and gathered the materials for liis great work, the 
"Life and Works of John Adams, Second President of the 



HON, CHARLES FP.AXCIS ADAMS. 289 

United States. In or about 1845, he commenced tlie publica. 
tion of a daily paper in Boston, (of wliicli he was also the prin- 
cipal editor, though aided by Henry Wilson,) bearing the title 
of the Boston Whig. The aim of this paper was to represent 
the views of the anti-slavery portion of the Whig party. The 
paper was edited Avith decided ability, but never, Ave imagine, 
attained to a pecuniary success. It Avas very useful, hoAvevcr, in 
rousing and stimulating the anti-slavery sentiment, Avhich Avas 
beginning to leaven both of the great political parties. 

In 1848, the nomination of General Taylor, by the Whigs, on 
a pro-slavery platform, and of General Cass, by the Democrats, 
on an equally southern declaration of opinions, led to a Avith- 
draAval of the anti-slavery men of both parties and the formation 
of the Free Soil party. This party, at their convention in Buf- 
falo, nominated ex-President Van Buren for the Presidency and 
Charles Francis Adams for the Yico Presidency. There Avas, of 
course, no hope of an election of these candidates, but the party 
had a respectable folloAving. Aftei the election, the Boston 
Whig became the Boston Bepublican, and Mr. Adams, for a time, 
continued a general supervision over its columns ; but General 
Wilson and Mr. (noAV Eev.) Lucius E. Smith AA'cre the active 
editors. This paper A\'as the principal organ of the Free Soil 
party in New England, and laid the foundations, broad and deep, 
for the Eepublican party, which came into existence in 1854f 
After a time, Mr. Adams disposed of his interest in it, and devoted 
himself Avith great assiduity to the memoir of his grandfather and 
the careful editing of his Avorks. This A'aluable contribution to the 
early history of our country is AA'ritten Avitli that elegant scholar- 
ship Avhich marks all Mr. Adams's compositions, and is remark- 
ably impartial in its details of the life of the venerable Presi- 
dent. It occupies ten volumes. In the autumn of 1859, Mr. 

Adams Avas called from his literary pursuits *o represent his dis- 
19 



290 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

trict in Congress. His course there, on the eve of the rebellion, 
was every way worthy of the great name he bore and of his 
own previous history. Calm, dignified, yet tenacious in his 
adherence to the great principles of right, he was such a repre- 
sentative as it became Massachusetts to have at such a time. 
He was re-elected to the Thirty -seventh Congress; but, in the 
spring of 1861, Mr. Lincoln nominated him as minister to 
England, and ho was promptly confirmed by the Senate. 

A more trying position than this, during the war, could 
hardly be found. The greater part of the aristocracy, and a 
decided majority of both Houses of Parliament, sympathized 
from the first with the South, most of them openly. The 
Cabinet, if they did not lean in the same direction, at least had 
no confidence in the final success of the Government in putting 
down the Eebellion, and were disposed to wink at violations of 
the Navigation and Foreign Enlistment acts, while they made 
haste to acknowledge the South as a belligerent power. This 
state of feeling engendered a corresponding hostility on this 
side, and there was a areat and constant danger that the two 
nations would drift into war with each other, an event Virhich 
must be prevented by any sacrifice short of that of national 
honor. Our sanguine and impulsive Secretary of State, though 
aware of the difficulty, seemed, sometimes, to delight in hovering 
upon the very verge of actual hostilities, and Earl Russell, the 
British Minister of Foreign Affairs, while really, at heart, more 
friendly to us than any other member of the Cabinet, Avas so 
irascible and impetuous, that he was constantly making the 
question more difficult and complicated. 

Fortunate was it for both countries, that their diplomatic rep- 
resentatives, Mr. Adams in England, and Lord Lyons here, were 
men of such calm, clear, cool heads, and of such imperturbable 
tempers. Mr. Adams could be, and was, firm and decided enough 



HON. CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 291 

upon occasion. His promptness in following up the traces 
of the purpose for which the Alabama, the Shenandoah, and 
the other war vessels contracted for by the rebels were build- 
ing, his energetic representations concerning them to the 
British Government, and his remonstrances at their unfriendly 
acts and omissions toward a power with which they were at 
peace, showed his ability and competency for his position. Un- 
fortunately, the conclusion of the war did not end the diflEicul- 
ties of his diplomacy. The Alabama claims, the Fenian troubles, 
and the dppeals to him to protect American citizens, who had 
become involved in the Fenian riots and uprisings in Great 
Britain and Ireland, served to enhance the cares and anxieties 
of his station, and he has, very naturally, after so long and 
painful a service, asked to be relieved. 

It is certainly greatly to his honor, that, in this trying and 
difficult position, he has won the respect and admiration of his 
and our political enemies, and that, notwithstanding his firm- 
ness and decision in exacting the rights of his country, the 
organs of English opinion should have felt compelled to say 
that no American minister had ever more thoroughly won the 
respect and esteem of the English people. 

In his manner and address, Mr. Adams has much of the 
dignity and self-possession of the best class of English gentle- 
men. He is generally regarded as somewhat cold and unsym- 
pathetic in his character, but this is, perhaps, in part due to his 
reticent and self contained nature. Great emergencies have 
always revealed a depth in his nature and an earnest sympathy 
with the right, which ought to satisfy any true patriot. He has 
certainly proved himself, in his diplomatic career, "the right 
man in the right place." 



JOHN ADAMS DIX. 



fc^O OHN ADAMS DIX was born at Boscawen, New Huinp- 
^ i\\ ' r 

'%fl shi]^, on the 24th of July, 1798, and is the son of Timo- 

cf^^^ thy Dix, a lieutenant-colonel of the United States army. 
V3 Sent first, at an early age, to an academy at Salisbury, 
he was thence transferred to a similar institution at Exeter, 
under the well known Dr. Abbott, where he pursued his studies 
in the companionship of Jared Sparks, John G. Palfrey, the 
Buckminsters and Peabodys, who have since become eminent 
men. In 1811, he was sent to Montreal, in Canada, where he 
continued his studies under the careful direction of the fathers 
of the Sulpician order. In July, 1812, however, the opening of 
hostilities between the United States and Great Britain com- 
pelled his return to his native country, and in December, folloAV- 
ing. he received an appointment as a cadet in the United States 
army, and was assigned to duty at Baltimore, w^here his father 
was then stationed on recruiting service. His duties here 
being merely those of an assistant clerk to his father, he diligently 
improved the opportunity which was offered, of continuing 
his studies at St. Mary's college, in that city. He had already 
attained high proficiency in the Spanish, Greek, and Latin 
languages, and in mathematics; and was esteemed, by those 
who knew him best, as a most highly cultivated and gentle- 
manly young mai]. In March, 1813, while visiting Washington, 

he was tendered, unsolicited, a choice of a scholarship at West 
292 



JOHN ADAMS DIX. 293 

Point, or an ensign's rank in the army. Selecting the latter, 
he was commissioned in his father's regiment, the fourteenth 
infantry", and immediately joined his company at Sackett's 
Harbor, New York, lieing the youngest officer in the United 
States army ; and was shortly made a third lieutenant of the 
twenty-first infantry. A sad loss shortly after befell the young 
lieutenant, in the death of his father, in camp, leaving a widow 
and eight children, besides the subject of our sketch, upon 
whom now devolved the responsibility of saving, for his loved 
ones, something from the estate, which had beconie seriously 
embarrassed by the colonel's long absence in the service. In 
March, 1814, he was promoted to a second lieutenancy, and in 
June, 1814, was transferred to an artillery regiment, commanded 
by Colonel Walback, to whose staff he was attached and under 
whose guidance he passed several years in perfecting his mili- 
tary education, not forgetting his favorite readings in history 
and the classics. "While in this position, he was made adjutant 
of an independent battalion of nine companies, commanded by 
Major Upham, with which he descended the St. Lawrence, in 
a perilous expedition, which resulted in more severe hardship 
than good fortune. 

In March, 1816, young Dix was appointed first lieutenant ; 
and, in 1819, entered the military family of Greneral Brown as 
an aide-de-camp, and began to read law during his leisure 
hours, with a view of leaving the army at an early day. 
During this period he was, in May, 1821, transferred to the 
first artillery ; and, in August following, to the third artillery, 
being promoted to a captaincy in the same regiment in 1825. 
His health having become seriously impaired, he obtained a 
leave of absence, and visited Cuba, during the winter of 1825 
-26, and extended his travels in the following summer to 
Europe. Marrying in 1826, he retired from the army, and in 



29i MEN OF OUR DAY. 

December, 1828, was admitted to the bar, and established him 
self in practice at Cooperstown, New York. Entering warmly, 
also, into politics, he became prominent in the Democratic 
party; and, in 1830, was appointed, by Governor Throop, adju- 
tant-general of the State, in which capacity he rendered effi- 
cient service to the militia of New York. In 1833, he was 
elected Secretary of State for Now York, becoming ex-officio a 
regent of the University, and a member of the board of Public 
Instruction, the Canal board, and a commissioner of the Canal 
fund. By his wise foresight and energy, school libraries were 
introduced into the public and district schools, and the school- 
laws of the State were codified and systematized. 

In 1841 and 18'12, he represented Albany county in the New 
York Legislature, taking an active and influential part in the 
most important measures of that period, such as the liquidation 
of the State debt by taxation, and the establishment of single 
Congressional districts. In the fall of 1842, Mr. Dix accom- 
panied his invalid wife abroad, spending that winter and the 
following year in the southern climates of Europe. Eeturn- 
ing to the United States in June, 1844, he was chosen, in 
January following, to fill the unexpired term in the United 
States Senate, of Hon. Silas Wright, who had recently been 
elected Governor of the State of New York. He took his seat in 
that body, January 27, 1845, and speedily secured a deservedly 
high position among his confreres, being energetic and indus- 
trious to a remarkable degree, and always well prepared for what 
ever question might arise. As chairman of the Committee on 
Commerce, and as a member of the Committee on Military Affairs, 
he did the country excellent service. He was the author of tho 
warehousing system then adopted by Congress, and gave lo the 
Canadian debenture law, and the bill for reciprocal trade, much 
of his time and attention. When, during the short session of 



JOHN ADAMS DIX. 295 

1845, the Santa Fc debenture bill was proposed, he secured an 
amendment including tlic Cauadas, which, together with the 
original bill, was largely indebted to his advocacy for its pas- 
sage. His bill for reciprocal trade with Canada, formed the 
basis for the subsequent reciprocity treaty. He also took great 
interest in army affairs, as in well as the annexation of Texas, 
the war with Mexico, and the Oregon difficulty ; and firmly main- 
tained the right of Congress to legislate with regard to slavery in 
the Territories. Owing to divisions in the Democratic party, he 
was not re-elected to the Senate ; but ran, unsuccessfully, as the 
nominee of the " Free Soil" wing of tliat party, for Governor, in 
the fall of 18-48. He actively sustained the nomination of 
General Pierce for the presidency, in 1852, and upon that gentle- 
man's accession to office, was tendered the office of Secretary of 
State ; which, owing to the opposition made by the Southern 
Democrats of the Mason and Slidell school, he was induced to 
decline, as also the appointment of minister to France, which 
was subsequently offered him. In 1853, he was made Assistant 
United States Treasurer in New York city ; but, on the appoint- 
ment of John y. Mason to the French embassy, resigned the 
position, and withdrew almost wholly from politics, devoting his 
time, until 1859, to legal practice. At that time, however, he 
was appointed, by President Buchanan, postmaster of New York 
city, vice I. Y. Fowler, absconded. 

When, in January, 1861, Messrs. Floyd and Cobb, of the 
first Buchanan cabinet, resigned their positions and fled from 
Washington, the financial embarrassments of the Government 
required the appointment of a Secretary of the Treasurj^, in 
wlio.se probity, patriotism, and skill the whole country could 
confide. General Dix was called to that high office, and entered 
on its duties, Januarv 15, 1861. The promptness of his measures 



296 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

did as mucli to reassure the public and save the Government, as 
the exertions of any other man in Washington. 

On the 18th of January, 1861, three days after he took charge 
of the Treasury Department, he sent a special agent to New 
Orleans and Mobile, for the purpose of saving the revenue ves- 
sels at those ports, from seizure by the rebels. The most valua- 
ble of these 'vessels, the Robert McClelland, was commanded by 
Captain John G. Breshwood, with S. B. Caldwell as his lieu- 
tenant. Breshwood refused to obey the orders of General Dix's 
agent, Mr. Jones ; and on being informed of this refusal, General 
Dix telegraphed as follows: — ^^ If any man attemjyis to haul down 
the American flaj, shoot him on the spotP^ memorable words, 
which became a watchword throughout the loyal States. 

While a member of Buchanan's cabinet, Major (now General) 
Robert Anderson made his famous strategical movement from 
Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, which so excited the indignation 
of the (arch-rebel) Secretary Floyd, that he threatened to resign 
if Anderson was not ordered back. General Dix, thereupon, 
promptly notified Mr. Buchanan, that Major Anderson's recall 
would be the signal for the immediate resignation of himself and 
the other members of the Cabinet (Messrs. Stanton and Holt), 
and his firmness decided the course of the weak-minded execu- 
tive, and Floyd himself left — none too soon for his own neck, 
or the country's good. 

On the 6th of March, 1861, Mr. Dix retired from the Treasury 
Department, and returned to his home in New York city, where 
he presided, on the 20th of April, over an immense meeting of 
the citizens of the metropolis, convened in Union Square, to take 
measures for the defence of the Constitution and the laws, so 
recently and rudely assailed by the rebel attack upon Fort Sum- 
ter — and he was also chairman of the " Union Defence Commit- 
tee," organized at that meeting. On the 6th of May, he was 



JOHN ADAMS DIX. 297 

appointed a major-general of volunteers, from New York ; and, 
on the 16tli of the following June, he was appointed major- 
general in the regular arnn', dating IVom May 16th, 1861, by 
President Lincoln, and placed in command of the department 
of Maryland, his headquarters being at Baltimore. The first 
military movement of the war that was successful, was made 
under his command by General Lockwood. The counties of 
Accomac and Northampton, in V^irginia, known as the Eastern 
Shore, were occupied by him, the rebels driven out, and the 
mildness and justness of his government restored them as loyal 
counties to the Union, while every other part of Virginia was 
in arms and devastated with war. The command of ]\Iaryland 
at that period required a man of the greatest tact, firmness, and 
judgment; for tbat reason. General Dix was selected by the 
President. His rule was one of such moderation and justice, 
that his reputation in Baltimore is honored by his most violent 
political opponents. 

In May, 1862, he was transferred to the command of the 
military department of Eastern Virginia, with headquarters at 
Fortress Monroe. This department enjoyed the benefit of his 
services until July, 1863, when he was transferred to the 
Department of the East, with headquarters at New York city. 
To his very prompt action for the prevention of any outbreak 
during the draft of August, 1863, the metropolis was indebted 
for the peaceful manner in which that draft was finally carried 
out. nis subsequent assignments to duty were administrative, 
and attended with no particular incidents of importance, except 
the trial of John Y. Beall and E. C. Kennedy, as spies and con- 
spirators, in February and March, 1865, and their execution, 
At the so-called National Union Convention at Philadelphia, 
August 14, 1866, General Dix was temporary chairman. In 
the autumn of 1866 he was nominated, by the President, naval 



298 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

officer of the port of New York, and the same day, United 
States minister to France, in place of Hon. John Bigelow, re- 
signed. After some hesitation, General Dix made his election 
to accept the post of minister to France, and having been con- 
firmed by the Senate, arrived in Paris, and was presented to the 
Emperor in January, 1867. He still occupies this position. In 
the intervals of a very busy life, General Dix has found some 
time for authorship, and his writings are marked by a united 
grace and dignity of style, which renders them, when not on 
technical or professional subjects, attractive and readable. This 
is specially true of his "A Winter in Madeira" (New York, 
ISol), and "A Summer in Spain and Florence" (New York, 
1855). His speeches and public addresses were collected in 
two fine volumes in 1865. He has also published " Eesources 
of the City of New York" (New York, 1827), and ''Decisions 
of the Superintendent of Common Schools of New York," and 
laws relating to common schools (Albany, 1837). 

Though now in his seventieth year. General Dix preserves 
the erect and military bearing of the soldier, and, during the 
late war, was one of the finest looking officers in the army. He 
bears a high reputation for thorough honesty and integrity, and 
his character is irreproachable. If, with increasing years, he 
has, like his former chief. General Scott, a little vanity, it is a 
pardonable weakness, a most venial fault, of which his great 
public services should render us oblivious. 



WILLIAM ALFRED BUCKINGHAM. 




ILLIAM ALFEED BUCKINGHAM is a direct descend- 
ant, in the sixth generation, from the Eev. Thomas 
-^ 'y) Buckingham and his wife Hester Hosmer, who were of 
' '^ Hartford, Connecticut, in 1666. His father, Captain 
Buckingham, as he was called, was a farmer, in Lebanon, Con- 
necticut, a shrewd manager of property, of clear mind and 
sound judgment, and frequently appealed to as umpire in 
matters of difference between neighbors. His wife was a 
remarkable woman, having few equals in all that was good, 
endowed with strong natural powers both of mind and body, 
indomitable perseverance and energy ; with, as one of her 
neighbors described her, " a great generous heart." 

William Alfred Buckingham, who was born at Lebanon, 
May 24:th, 180-i, happily partook of the strong points of both 
his parents. His father being absent from home, on business, 
during a portion of the year, much of the work and care of the 
farm necessarily devolved upon him, while yet a mere boy, and 
he thus early acquired habits of industry and self-reliance. 
One who knew him well at this period of his life, says, " I don't 
think any thing left in his care was ever overlooked or 
neglected." The same friend says, " he was early trained in the 
school of benevolence. I have often seen him sent off" on 
Saturday afternoons, when the weather was severe, with a 
wagon load of wood, from his father's well-stored wood-shed, 

299 



300 MEN' OF OUR DAY. 

and a number of baskets and budgets, destined to cheer some 
destitute persons in the neighborhood, and make them comfort- 
able. He received his education at the common school in 
Lebanon, and passed a term or two at Colchester Academy — 
evincing a peculiar fondness for the study of mathematics, 
especially in the higher bro.nches. As he grew up, he developed 
as a lively, spirited " fast" young man, in the hest acceptation 
of that term — his habits being excellent, and integrity being a 
marked feature in his character. Indeed, he was regarded as 
rather a leader among the young people with Avhom lie asso- 
ciated. 

In early manhood, he was a member of a cavalry militia 
company, and " trooped" with the same energy which has since 
characterized him in whatever he undertook — excelling in 
military matters, and becoming a master of the broadsword 
exercise. 

Commencing mercantile life, as a clerk in the city of ISTew 
York; at the age of twenty years, he removed to Norwich, 
Connecticut, in 1825, and entered into the employ of Messrs. 
Hamlin, Buckingham & Giles. A few years later hti com- 
menced business on his own account, and by enterprise, 
thrift, punctuality, and honorable dealiag, became a most 
successful and widely respected merchant. He has since been 
extensively engaged in various manufactures; espfcially in 
the Hay ward Rubber Company, of which he was treasurer for 
many years; and the town of Norwich has been largely 
indebted to his example and influence. He w^as one of the 
founders of the Norwich Free Academy, and, in 1849, was 
elected mayor of the city, which office he filled for two 
years. His eminently practical mind and great executive 
ability have contributed largely to the manufacturing and 
industrial interests of his native State ; and the whole weight 



WILLIAM ALFRED BUCKINGHAM. 301 

of his personal character and sympathies has ever been enlisted 
in support of religion, temperance, industry, and education. 
We have it on excellent authority, that the governor, at the 
con^menceraent of his business career, made a resolve to set 
aside one fifth of each years income to be applied to objects of 
religious benevolence ; and that his experience was for many 
years, and perhaps is still, that each year's income was so 
much in excess of that which preceded it, that at the year's end 
he always had an additional sum to distribute to objects of 
benevolence, to make out the full fifth of his receipts. A 
striking illustration this, of the declaration of holy writ: 
" There is that scattereth and yet increaseth." During the 
eight terms of his gubernatorial career, his entire salary, 
as governor, was bestowed upon benevolent objects; for the 
most part, we believe, on Yale college, in which he founded 
several scholarships, for worthy but indigent students. In- 
deed, the spirit of benevolence which he .inherited from his 
parents, has ever remained a distinguishing feature of his 
character. In providing for the wants of the poor and unfor- 
tunate, and in the unostentatious performance of every good 
work. Governor Buckingham's life has been a record of un 
wearied industry. 

The qualities which had gained him the respect of his fellow- 
citizens, as they became more widely known, commended him 
to the public as a candidate for higher positions of trust and 
responsibility. In 1858, he was elected Governor of Connecti- 
cut, and to the same oflice he was re-elected in 1859, and 1860. 
Again, on the 1st of April, 1861, he was chosen to the guberna- 
torial chair, by a majority of two thousand and eighty-six votes, 
the entire Eepublican State ticket being elected, at the same 
time, together with a large Union and Republican majority in 
both houses of the General Assembly. On the 15th of the same 



302 MEN OF OUR DAT. 

month, he received the President's call for seventy-five thousand 
volunteers. The Legislature was not then in session, but the 
governor had been among the first to see (in 1860) the rising 
cloud of " the irrepressible conflict." He had long since aban- 
doned any hopes of settling the national difficulties by compro- 
mise; he had recognized them as questions on which every 
citizen must decide squarely, for right or wrong, for freedom or 
slavery. Therefore his action, when the storm burst, was 
prompt and decided. He took immediate measures on his own 
responsibility, to raise and equip the quota of troops required 
from Connecticut ; his own extensive financial relations enabling 
him to command the funds needed for the purpose. He threw 
himself into the work, with all the force of his energetic nature ; 
and during that week of anxiety, when "Washington was isolated 
from the north, by the Baltimore rising, his message — that the 
State of Connecticut was coming "to the rescue," with men and 
money, was the first intimation received by the President, that 
help was near at hand. The banks came to his aid^ and money 
and personal assistance were tendered freely by prominent par- 
ties in every section of the State — so that, by the time (May 1st) 
that the Legislature had assembled in extra session (in response 
to a call which he had made upon the. receipt of Mr. Lincoln's 
proclamation), he had the pleasure of informing them 'that forty- 
one volunteer companies had already been accepted, and that a 
fifth regiment was ready. Ten days later, the first regiment, 
eight hundred and thirty-four strong, under Colonel (afterwards 
General) A. H. Terry, left the State, equipped with a thorough- 
ness — as were all the Connecticut troops — wliich elicited univer- 
sal admiration from all who beheld them. 

Soon after he pronounced his conviction, in an official 
communication to the Washington cabinet, that "this is no 
ordinary rebellion," that it " should be met and suppressed by a 



WILLIAir ALFRED BUCKINGHAM. 803 

power corresponding with its magnitude," that the President 
" should ask for authority to organize and arm a force of half a 
million of men, for the purpose of quelling the rebellion, and 
for an appropriation from the public treasury sufficient for their 
support," " that legislation upon every other subject should be 
regarded as out of time and place, and the one great object of 
suppressing the rebellion be pursued by the Administration, 
with vigor and firmness." " To secure such high public inter- 
ests," said the governor, " the State of Connecticut will bind her 
destinies more closely to those of the General Government, and 
in adopting the measures suggested, she will renewedly pledge 
all her pecuniary and physical resources, and all her moral 
power," It will be seen, therefore, that Governor Buckingham 
took an accurate and comprehensive view of the extent, the 
probable course and the power of the war just inaugurated — 
and better would it have been for our country, if others of our 
leading statesmen had pursued, at that critical hour, the same 
calm, clear insight and broad statesmanship. There was nothing 
undecided in his thought or action. His suggestions upon every 
point relative to the prosecution of the war, and the policy of 
the State, were full of patriotic, far-seeing wisdom. He was 
nobly seconded by a loyal Legislature, and though " peace men" 
tried to intimidate the Unionists, their attempts recoiled upon 
their own heads. By the 1st of March, 1862, fifteen Connecticut 
regiments were in the field, and by November following, 28,551 
soldiers had been furnished to the defence of the Union, by the 
little " Wooden Nutmeg State." 

In April, 1862, Governor Buckingham was re-elected and his 
efforts were as untiring as ever. No amount of disaster in the 
field, of hesitation in council, or of depression in the public 
mind, seemed to afi'cct him. lie was always ready to make greater 
sacrifices ; always full of hope and determination ; and, with the 



SO-i MEX OF OUR DAY. 

late lamented John A. Andrew, the noble governor of the sictek 
State of Massachusetts, he was among the earliest to urge the 
necessity of an Emancipation Proclamation upon President Lin- 
coln. When that great step had at length been taken, he wrote 
to the President these cheering and congratulatory words : 

" Permit me to congratulate you and the country that you 
have so clearly presented the policy which you will hereafter 
pursue in sujjpressing the rebellion, and to assure you it 
meets my cordial approval, and shall have my unconditional 
support. The State has already sent into the army, and haa 
now at the rendezvous, more than one half of her able-bodied 
men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five venrs. and 
has more to offer, if wanted, to contend in battle against ihe 
enemies of our Government." 

The spring campaign of 1863 was an exciting one; em- 
boldened by the ill -success of the national arms, the Democracy 
rallied around the standard, of " no more war !" while the Ee- 
publicans, with equal ardor, advocated a more vigorous prose- 
cution of the war, and were cordially seconded by the Connecti- 
cut soldiers in the field. Buckingham, however, was re-elected 
by a majority of 2637, in a total vote of 79,427, in which had 
been polled 9000 more votes than the year previous, and 2000 
more than the aggregate presidential vote of 1860. 

In April, 1864, Governor Buckingham was re-nominated by 
the Eepublicans, against Origen S. Seymour, Democrat, and was 
elected by a majority of 5,658, in a total vote of 73,982. Again, . 
in 1865, he was re-elected governor over the same opponent by 
a majority of 11,035, in a vote of 43,374. 

In his annual message he strongly advocated giving soldiers 
in the field the privilege of the ballot, and national legislation 
for the abolishment of slavery. 

With 1865, closed Governor Buckingham's long gubernato- 



WILLIAM ALFRED BUCKINGHAM. 805 

rial career of eight years, of which five were " war years, fully 
tasking his every physical and mental power, and loading him 
with an incessant burden of responsibility and care. His course, 
during this arduous term of service, had commanded the uni- 
versal respect of his fellow-citizens, and the admiration of all 
loyal hearts throughout the Northern States. Prominent among 
that noble circle of loyal governors who rallied around the 
President, in his darkest hours, with brotherly advice and en- 
couraging words. Governor Buckingham's relations with Mr. 
Lincoln strongly remind us of those between President Wash- 
ington and Governor Trumbull, the " Brother Jonathan" of the 
Eevolutionary war. 

After the close of his last term of service, in April, 1866, he 
returned to Norwich, where he is now quietly engaged in mer- 
cantile affairs. He has lately been nominated, and warmly 
endorsed by his fellow-citizens, in the Eepublican State Conven- 
tion of Connecticut, for the vice-presidency upon the Grant 
ticket. 

Still more recently, on the 19th of May, 1868, he was elected, 
by the Legislature of Connecticut, United States Senator from 
that State for the six years ending March 4, 1875, in place of 
James Dixon, who had proved false to the party that advanced 
him to that high office. 
20 



GOVERNOR REUBEN E. FENTON. 



J||k,OVERNOR FENTON is one of the few men who, bred 
f I jjl neither to law nor politics, but occupied during early life 
<^^yr[ with mercantile pursuits, have entered later in their 

c^ career into the political arena, and acquitted themselves 
so well as to be advanced to, and continued in, high station. 
Though himself a native of the State of New York, his family, 
like many others whose record we have given in this volume, 
are of Connecticut origin. He claims descent from Robert Fen- 
ton, a man of note among the settlers of the eastern part of Con- 
necticut, and who was one of the patentees of the town of Mans- 
field, when that town was set off from "Windham, in 1703. During 
the Revolutionary war, the family was noted for its jDatriotism, 
and furnished its full share of soldiers for that great struggle. 
The grandfather of the governor, about 1777, removed to New 
Hampshire, in which State his father was born. In the early 
part of the present century, Mr. Fenton, then an enterprising 
young farmer, removed to what is now the town of Carroll, 
Chautauqua county. New York, then a portion of the Holland 
land patent, where he purchased a tract of land, and by dint of 
constant hard work, brought this portion of " the forest primeval" 
into the condition of a pleasant and profitable farm. Here — 
July 4, 1819 — his son, Reuben E. Fenton, was born. 

Young Fenton's early years were spent upon the paternal 

homestead, and though an amiable, friendly and popular boy 
306 



i 



GOVERNOR REUBEN E. FENTON. 307 

among his associates, lie seems to Lave developed uo remarkable 
genius or ability in his boyhood. He was somewhat fond of 
military studies, and in the boyish trainings was uniformly 
chosen captain, and it was probably owing to this taste that he 
was chosen colonel of the 162d regiment, New York State 
militia, before he was twenty-one years of age. 

His opportunities for acquiring an education were very lim- 
ited, but they were well improved. He was a good scholar 
when he Avas in the common-school, and when, subsequently, he 
passed a few terms in different academies, he made rapid pro- 
gress as a student, and won the approbation of his preceptors 
for his manly qualities and exemplary deportment. He read 
law one year, not with the view of going into the profession, 
but to make himself familiar with the principles and forms of 
that science, under the impression that this knowledge would be 
useful to him in whatever business he might engage. 

At the age of twenty, he commenced business, with very 
limited means and under adverse circumstances. But the fact 
did not discourage him, nor turn him from his purposes. The 
world was before him, and what others had accomplished, young 
Fenton resolved should be done by him. He went at his work 
with all the earnestness and energy of his character, and a few 
years saw him a successful and prosperous merchant. While in 
this pursuit, he turned his attention to the lumber trade, as an 
auxiliary to his mercantile business. He was still a young man 
when he purchased his first " boards and shingles," and as he 
floated off upon his fragile raft, valued at less than one thousand 
dollars, there were not wanting those who wondered at his 
temerity, and the failure of his enterprise was confidently pre- 
dicted. But nothing could dampen his ardor. He tied his little 
raft safely on the shore of the Ohio, near Cincinnati, went into 
the city, found a customer, sold his lumber, and returned to his 



308 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

home with a pride and satisfaction never excelled in after years, 
though he went the round with profits tenfold greater. Lum- 
bering became in a few years his principal business ; 9,nd to such 
a man, success and competence were but a matter of time. He 
soon enjoyed the reputation of being the most successful lum- 
berman on the Alleghany and Ohio rivers ; but this came only 
because he wrought it by untiring perseverance and indefati- 
gable energy. 

In 1843, Mr. Fenton was chosen supervisor of his native 
town, and held the position for eight successive years. Three 
of these eight he was chairman of the board, though the board 
was two to one Whig, while he was a well-known Democrat. 
But he was courteous and afl'able, manly and upright, genial 
aad sensible, and his opponents, by common consent, selected 
him to preside over their deliberations. 

In 18i9, his friends nominated him for the assembly, and he 
came within twenty-one votes of being elected, though the suc- 
cessful candidate was one of the oldest and most popular men 
in the assembly district, which was strongly Whig. 

In 1852, he was put in nomination by the Democrats for 
Congress, and elected by fifty-two majority, though the district, 
from the manner in which it was accustomed to vote, should 
have given at least 3,000 majority against him. He took his 
seat, on the first Monday in December, 1853, in a House which 
was Democratic by about two to one. Mr. Douglas, chairman 
of the Senate Committee on Territories, in the course of the 
session, was beguiled into embodying in a bill which provided 
for the organization as territories of Kansas and Nebraska, a re- 
peal of that portion of the Missouri compromise of 1820, which 
forbade the legalization of slavery in any territory of the 
United States, lying north of north latitude, thirty-six degrees 
and thirty minutes. Mr. Fenton. with N. P. Banks, and quite 



GOVEENOR REUBEN E. FENTON. 309 

a number of the younger Democrats, with Colonel Thomas H, 
Benton and other seniors, steadfastly opposed this proposition, 
and opposed the bill because of it. The bill was nevertheleas 
forced through the House by a vote of 113 to 100, and became 
a law. In the division that thereupon ensued, Mr. Fenton took 
Republican ground with Preston King, Ward Hunt, George 
Opdyke, and other conspicuous Democrats, and he has never 
since been other than a Republican. 

In 185-1, the American or Know Nothing party carried his 
district by a considerable majority (Mr. Fenton consenting to be 
a candidate on the Saturday previous to election), as they did 
a good many others in the State ; but, in 1856, he ran on the 
Fremont ticket, and was elected, and thence re-elected by 
large and generally increasing majorities down to 1861, when 
he withdrew, having been nominated for Governor. He thus 
served five terms in Congress, each as the representative of the 
strongly Whig district composed of Chautauqua and Cattarau- 
gus counties, which contains many able and worthy men who 
were in full accord with its by-gone politics, and to the almost 
unanimous acceptance of his constituents. 

Immediately on entering Congress, Mr. Fenton espoused the 
cause of the soldiers of 1812, and shortly after introduced a bill 
providing for the payment of the pjoperty accounts between 
the United States and the State of New York, for military 
stores furnished in the war of 1812. This measure he con- 
tinued to urge upon the attention of Congress, and finally, on 
the 30th May, 1860, had the satisfaction to witness its passage 
in the House by a vote of 98 to 80. He had a leading place on 
important committees, and performed the duties appertaining to 
these positions in a manner satisfactory to all. It is but simple 
truth to say that he was one of the quietly industrious and 
faithful members of the House. Nor was he a silent representa- 



310 MEN" OF OUR DAY. 

tive. He could talk when there seemed a necessity for speak- 
ing. During his Congressional career, he delivered able and 
effective speeches against the repeal of the Missouri Comprom- 
ise act ; in advocacy of a cheap postal system ; the bill to ex- 
tend invalid pensions ; for the improvement of rivers and har- 
bors ; to regulate emigration to this country ; against the policy 
of the Democratic party with regard to Kansas ; for the final 
settlement of the claims of the soldiers of the Revolution; in 
vindication of the principles and policy of the Republican party ; 
on the Deficiency bill ; the bill to facilitate the payment of boun- 
ties ; on the repeal of the Fugitive Slave law ; on providing for 
payment of losses by the rebellion, etc. 

Mr. Fenton served in Congress nearly to the end of the war 
for the Union, of which he was one of the firmest and most 
efficient supporters. Believing the Union to be right and the 
rebellion wrong throughout, he gave his best energies to the 
national cause, voting steadily for taxes, loans, levies, drafts, 
and for the emancipation policy whereby they were rendered 
effectual. Men of greater pretensions were abundant in Con- 
gress, but there was none more devoted, or more ready to 
invoke and to make sacrifices for the triumph of the Union. 

In the fall of 1862, Mr. Fenton's name was favorably men- 
tioned iu connection with the ofl&ce of governor, but finding 
General Wadsworth was to be pressed for a nomination, Mr. 
Fenton promptly withdrew from the canvass, and yielded to the 
patriot soldier his Avarmest support. In 1864, Mr. Fenton was 
designated as the standard-bearer of the Republican party, and 
chosen governor by a majority considerably larger than Mr. 
Lincoln's ; and two years later, he was unanimously re-nomina- 
ted, and chosen by an increased majority. 

The administration of Governor Fenton commenced at the 
culminating period of ihf war, and required the exercise of 



GOVEBNOR REUBEN E. FEXTOX. 311 

industry, method, decision, and the power of discriminating, 
originating, and executing. He brought to the discharge of 
his new position all these forces of body and mind, and prorved 
patient amid perplexities, quick in his perceptions, safe in hi? 
judgments, mastering toilsome details, and successfully meeting 
difficult emergencies. His practical training, his wide experi- 
ence, his luminous intellect and well-disciplined judgment, 
saved him from the failure that a man of less power might 
have encountered. His official relations with our soldiers did 
not weaken the attachments that had given him the honored 
title of the " soldier's friend." He was prompt to reward merit, 
and skilful to harmonize differences that often threatened 
demoralization and serious injury to many of the military 
organizations then in the field. Upon the return home of the 
soldiers. Governor Fenton addressed a letter to the war commit- 
tees of the various districts in the State, in which he suggested 
the propriety of a hearty and spontaneous welcome to the 
heroic defenders of the country, on the part of the people of the 
State — an ovation to demonstrate the gratitude of those whose 
battles they had so bravely fought. 

Governor Fenton's judicious course lully commanded the 
public confidence and approval, and at the close of the first 
year of his term, many of the most prominent and influential 
citizens of New York city addressed him a letter of thanks, 
promising him their hearty co-operation and support in his 
efforts to improve the condition and health of the metropolis. 
A few months later, when he visited New York city, thousands 
of the best men of New York waited upon him, in person to 
assure him of their respect and approval of his course. 

He found it necessary to veto several bills of the first Legisla- 
ture Avhich sat after his election, in consequence of their de- 
priving the city of New York of valuable franchises, without 



312 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

conferring compensating advantages. For these acts, lie was 
thanked publicly, by a resolution of the Board of Supervisors 
of New York county. Governor Feuton's views upon the 
political issues which were involved in Mr. Johnson's attempted 
"policy" were ably expressed, in a letter addressed to the 
committee of a meeting held to ratify the action of the State 
Union Convention, in October, 1866, and soon after in a speech 
delivered at a lo,rge political gathering in Jamestown. During 
the canvass that followed, his opponents were unable to assail 
any portion of his oflicial record, and his friends proudly 
pointed to it, as what a patriotic governor's should be. 

"When, in August, 1866, Mr. Johnson, in the course of his 
political tour, generally known as " swinging round the circle," 
visited Albany, a proper regard for the high office he held, 
required that the governor of the State should proffer its 
hospitalities to him. Governor Fenton did so in the following 
brief but dignified address : — 

" Mk. President : — 

" With high consideration for the Chief Magistrate of the 
Republic, I address you words of welcome in behalf of our 
citizens and the people of the State whose capital you visit. 
We extend to you and to your suite hospitality and greeting, 
and desire your safe conduct as you go hence to pay honor 
to the memory of the lamented Douglas, — to the State also 
distinguished as the home and final resting place of the patriot 
and martyr, Lincoln. 

" I have no power to give due expression to the feelings of 
this assemblage of citizens, nor to express in fitting terms the 
respect and magnanimity of the whole people upon an occasion 
so marked as the coming to our capital and to our homes of 
the President of the United States. In their name I give 
assurance to your excellency of their fidelity, patriotism and 
jealous interest in all that relates to the good order, progress, 
and freedom of all the States, and of their earnest hope that 



GOVEENOR REUBEN E. FENTON". 313 

peace will soon open up to the people of the whole land new 
fields of greater liberty, prosperity and power." 

The Republican party, in 1866, saw the necessity of selecting 
wise men for its nominees. The more discerning politicians 
felt that there was reason to fear an unfavorable result of the 
canvass. Ilerculean efforts were being made to defeat the 
party at the polls. A division had been created among those 
who had heretofore professed its principles. A number of 
influential gentlemen openly repudiated its ideas in regard to 
reconstruction. The Philadelphia Convention had produced 
a schism, which it was feared might prove formidable, if not 
disastrous. Those who were the most pronounced in favor 
of the policy of President Johnson, were the most earnest in 
their opposition to Governor Fenton. The question naturally 
arose whether this marked hostility might not prove fatal to 
success, by stimulating the Conservatives to greater eftbrt, and 
enabling them to exert more powerful influence over the 
moderate and doubtful portion of the party ; and whether a 
man less likely to be thus assailed might not be stronger. On 
the other hand, there was to be considered the effect which the 
leading measures of his administration had produced " on the 
popular mind. His national policy had contributed in a 
marked degree to the success of the war. He had entered upon 
his term of office as successor to one who disapproved of many 
of the principal features of the war policy of the Government, 
and who had been elected because of his decided views in 
relation thereto. He had stimulated volunteering, and secured 
for the State a more just recognition of its rights ; had worked 
clear from the complications in which the public interest had 
been involved by the blundering and incompetency of the pro- 
vost marshal general ; and had relieved New York from a large 
portion of the dreaded burden of the draft. He had d(")ne 



314 MEN" OF OUR DAY. 

much, with the co-operation of the head of the State finance 
department, to originate a financial system which rendered the 
credit of the State stable and secure, and furnished the means 
to supply the demands of war, without being felt as oppressive. 
By his keen appreciation of the wants of the soldiers, his tender 
solicitude for their welfare, and his earnest eftbrts in their 
behalf, he had firmly attached them to himself. In his State 
policy, he had sought to foster all the material interests of the 
commonwealth; and had reluctantly interposed to the defeat 
of needed enterprises when their aid would render the burden 
of taxation onerous, and awaited a more favorable opportunity 
to join in giving them that aid. He was vigilant in his at- 
tention to the commercial wants of the State, both in the great 
metropolis and through its extensive lines of transit. This un- 
wavering devotion to the essential prosperity of the State, 
elicited confidence and commendation. All the discriminating 
judgment and forecast of the statesman had been displayed 
in a marked degree. These views were impressed on the 
minds of the representative men of his party, and when the 
Convention assembled, so strongly did they prevail, and so 
heavily did they outweigh adverse considerations, that no 
other name was suggested, and he was unanimously nominated 
by acclamation. The Democrats entered upon the canvass full 
of hope. Prominent places were given by them, on the State 
ticket, to Eepublicans who dissented from the principles enun- 
ciated by the Eepublican party, and nominations of a like 
character were made for many local of&ces in various portions 
of the State. The result showed that Governor Fenton's 
strength had not been miscalculated. He was re-elected by a 
majority five thousand larger than that given him in his first 
canvass. 

The year 1867 furnished the occasion for a continuation of a 



GOVERNOR REUBEN E. FENTON. 815 

policy which had proved so acceptable, and it is not necessary 
that we should dwell upon its features. 

The absence of all malevolence in the heart of Governor Fen- 
ton, and the broad charity of his nature, were displayed during 
the past year. The remains of the rebel dead had been left 
unburied at Antietam. A letter from Governor Fenton, breath- 
ing the spirit of loyalty and humanity, decided the committee at 
once to an act both Christian and proper, and in accordance with 
the spirit of the law of Maryland, which authorized the pur- 
chase of a cemetery, and created a corporation to carry out the 
declared object of burying in it, all who fell on either side 
during the invasion of Lee at the battle of Antietam. In that 
letter he took the high ground that it " was a war less of sec- 
tions than of systems," and that the nation could confer decent 
burial on the southern dead while condemning and sternly 
opposing the heresies for which they had sacrificed themselves ; 
and that attachment to the Union and devotion to the most 
thorough measures for its preservation and restoration were not 
inconsistent with the broadest charity, and the observance of 
sacred obligations to the dead. This letter accomplished the 
intended purpose ; and the bones of the rebel soldiers who fell 
on that memorable field, will be interred as befitting not only a 
legal obligation, but the highest demands of civilization and 
our common humanity. 

In his message to the Legislature of 1868, Governor Fenton 
forcibly expressed himself in favor of materially reducing the 
number of items in the tax lists, and cf a re-adjustment of the 
assessment laws — now so glaringly unequal — in order that every 
source of wealth might bear its just proportion of burden. He 
also took strong ground in defence of the inviolate maintenance 
of the national faith. In his usual terse and vigorous style, he 
argued against the legality of the Governments instituted by 



516 MEN OF OUR DAT. 

President Johnson, after the cessation of active hostilities, and 
held that the reconstruction acts of Congress were necessary, 
because the Southern States had rejected, with scorn, the peace- 
offering of the Constitutional Amendment. He eloquently- 
expressed himself in behalf of the rights of the freedman, in 
consideration of his manhood and loyalty, to protection through 
law, and to the elective franchise. 

Governor Fenton realizes that the people of New York 
have made him their Chief Magistrate, and that they look to 
him, and to no other person, for the faithful discharge of the 
duties of the responsible position. He is controlled by no 
clique — he is the agent of no cabal. He patiently listens to all 
who desire to consult him, and then follows the dictates of his 
own good judgment. He has no prejudice so strong, nor 
partiality so great, as to lead him to do an unjust act. He is a 
careful thinker and a hard worker. No man ever labored 
more hours in the executive chamber than he does. What- 
ever work engages his attention, he attends to it personally, 
even to the minutest details. 

He is a decided radical, and yet he cannot be called an 
extreme man. There is just enough conservatism in his com- 
position to save him from doing an unwise or rash act. Hia 
mind is thoroughly practical. He is a man of decided convic- 
tions, and fearless in their expression, and yet his manner of 
address and style of composition are so gentle and courteous as 
to almost disarm opposition. 

A more upright man does not exist. Make it clear to him 
that a thing ought to be done, and he will do it, no matter who 
may advise differently. He has trod on great schemes and 
powerful lobbies in his State. He has defended public interest 
against the rapacity of organized theft. He has escaped the 
charge of connivance with any of these organized rings. 



GOVERNOR REUBEN E. FENTON. 817 

He has wou the grateful regard of the Republicans of the 
State. 

The Republican State Convention, of New York, held at 
Syracuse, February 5, 1868, composed of three hundred and 
eighty-four delegates, unanimously adopted the following reso- 
lution : 

^^ Resolved^ That Reuben E. Fenton is the first choice of the 
Union Republican party in this State for the office of Vice- 
President. His early and consistent identification with the 
cause of human freedom, his patriotic services in Congress, 
the fidelity and sagacity he has displayed in the office of Chief 
Magistrate of the State, his earnest and uniform devotion to tho 
wants and interests of soldiers, his popularity, as attested by 
being twice elected Governor over strong antagonists, as well 
as his great prudence and firmness, give assurance that his 
nomination would inspire universal confidence and enthusiasm, 
and be followed by the triumphant success of the whole ticket." 

More brilliant men may have occupied the executive chair in 
the State of New York, than Governor Fenton, but it has been 
filled by no more sagacious statesman, and by no more consci- 
entious man, and such will be the verdict of those who shall 
impartially write a history of the times wherein we live. 



HON. OLIVER PERRY MORTON. 




I LIVER PERRY MORTON was born in Wayne county, 
Indiana, on the 4tli of August, 1823, and, becoming an 
orphan while yet very young, was placed under the care 
of his grandmother and two aunts, living in Hamilton 
county, Ohio. In early youth he served for awhile with a 
brother in the hatter's trade, but, in 1839, was placed at school 
in his native county, under the tuition of Professor S. K. Hos- 
hour, then principal of the Wayne county seminary, and now 
a professor in the Northwestern Conference university, at Indi- 
anapolis. His honored instructor says of him, at this period 
of his life, " If some knowing genius had then suggested to me 
that the future governor, par excellence, of Indiana, Avas then 
in the group around me, I would probably have sought him in 
a more bustling form, with brighter eyes and a more marked 
head than Oliver's. But time has shown that in him was the 
mens sana in corpore sano, which the college, the acquisition of 
jurisprudence, legal gymnastics at the bar, the political crisis of 
the past, and the present exigencies of the nation, have fully 
developed, and now present him the man for the most responsi- 
ble position in the gift of a free people." After leaving the 
seminary, young Morton entered Miami university, at Oxford, 
Ohio, where he appears under a more favorable guise, as the 
star member of the Beta Theta Pi society, and the best debater 

in the college. Leaving the university without graduating, he 
318 



HON. OLIVER PERRY MORTON", 819 

went to Centreville, Indiana, and began the study of law with 
the lion. John S. Newman, bending all his energies to the tho- 
rough acquisition of his profession. In 18-i5, he married Miss 
Lucinda M. Burbank, of Centreville, a lady of rare intelligence 
and refinement, whose untiring and benevolent efforts, during 
the recent war of the civil rebellion, for the relief of the Indiana 
volunteers, have honored both herself and her husband. 

Admitted to the bar in 18-16, Mr. Morton soon took a front 
rank as a jurist and advocate, commanding, by his natural and 
acquired abilities, a large and lucrative practice. In the spring 
of 1852, he was elected circuit judge, acquiring among his fel- 
low-members of the bar, as well as in the public estimation, a 
high reputation for thoroughness and fairness. When, in the 
spring of 185-1, the Democratic party, of which he had always 
been a member, repealed the Missouri compromise and passed 
the Kansas-Nebraska bill, he promptly seceded from the party, 
and thenceforth co-operated with the Republican party in its 
efforts to stay the spread of slavery and slave territory. Yet. 
on the subject of free trade, internal improvements, etc., he re 
mained essentially in harmony with this old party, nor did he 
repudiate these principles in his departure from the Democracy, 
or in his acceptance of the nomination for the governorship of 
Indiana, which was tendered to him, in 1856, by acclamation. 
Having consented to head the Republican State ticket, he accom- 
panied his Democratic competitor — Ashbel P. Willard — in a 
vigorous and thorough canvass of the entire State, doing noble 
work, wherever he went, for the cause of Republicanism. Yet, 
although he was defeated, the large vote which he received, con- 
sidering the many difficulties under which he labored, and the 
youth of his party in the State, was justly to be considered a 
victory. From this time forward, Morton's character seemed to 
develop into new strength and harmony, and the superiority of 



320 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

his mental organization became more generally acknowledged. 
From the end of this campaign, however, to the commencement 
of that of 1860, he asked no honors of his party, but was con- 
tent to labor, energetically and constantly, for the promotion of 
its success. His sound judgment and eminently practical mind 
gave him new influence in political councils, where he was 
acknowledged as the best of engineers and an authority as a 
framer of policy. The Republican party in Indiana, from its 
inception to 1860, owes its advancement largely to his untiring 
zeal, wise counsels, and personal influence. 

When that important campaign opened, Mr. Morton's name 
again appeared on the Republican ticket as nominee for lieu- 
tenant-governor, " for reasons which were, at that time, supposed 
to have some weight, but which have since faded so completely 
that it seems almost incredible that he was ever thought of for 
so inferior a position." Again he plunged into the canvass of 
the State with that vigor of intellect and body which few men 
possess, in an equal degree, showing a scope of view and a con- 
cise, but logical, method of statement and argument which 
rendered him unanswerable by his Democratic opponents, and 
which entitled him to the front rank of expounders of the Re- 
publican doctrines. The Republican ticket in Indiana, as in all 
the Northern States, was successful, and, on the l-ith day of Jan- 
uary, 1861, he was duly qualified as lieutenant-governor, and 
took his seat as president of the Senate. He occupied this posi- 
tion but two days, when, in consequence of the election, by the 
Legislature, of the governor elect — Hon. Henry S. Lane — to the 
Senate for a six-years' term, he became Governor of Indiana, 
and took the oath of office. Upon assuming the executive chair, 
Governor Morton found the public interests in a critical 
condition. Under previous loose, corrupt administrations, the, 
public treasury hud been depleted by wanton extravagance and 



HOX. OLIVER PERRY MORTON. 321 

official peculation, the sinking fund liadbcen miserably misman- 
aged, and a regular system of frauds Lad been carried on by 
State and county officers in the disposition of the swamp lands, 
until the credit of the State abroad was so much impaired that 
she had become a borrower to pay her debts, and was, literally, 
*' a by-word among her own citizens." The new govcrnoi set 
himself earnestly to work to bring order out of confusion, to 
renovate the different departments of government, to replenish 
a depleted treasury and to redeem the credit of the State. He 
inaugurated a new era of honesty, economy, and good financial 
management, which saved the State many millions of dollar*, 
and rescued her name from infamy and distrust. 

But a new and still more threatening danger was to be 
averted from his beloved " Hoosier State." The gathering 
cloud of disunion and civil war hung over the country, and it 
became evident that Indiana was afflicted with so large a share 
of disloyalty, that the advocates of secession even confidently 
counted upon material aid from her, in the shape of men and 
arms, in their proposed treasonable designs. Governor Morton 
was determined, however, that this scarce concealed treason 
should be nipped " in the bud," and to commit his State fully 
and unequivocally on the side of freedom and loyalty. Early 
in the spring of 1861, he visited the President at AVashington, 
and assured him, that if he pursued a vigorous policy, he could 
pledge him at least six thousand Hoosiers for the defence of 
the Union. When, at length, in April, the attack upon Sumter 
had both startled and fired the northern heart, and the Presi- 
dent issued his call for seventy -five thousand troops — Indiana's 
quota being fixed at six regiments, of seven hundred and fifty 
men each — Governor Morton issued a proclamation, which, in 
eight days, rallied over twelve thousand men to the defence of 

the national flag. The first six regiments marched promptly 
21 



822 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

forward to the field, attracting at all points general admiration 
and surprise at tlie perfection of their equipment; and Governor 
Morton's efficiency was held up as an incentive for other State 
executives to follow in nearly all the northwestern States ; and 
hardly had these first troops reached the field, before the ever- 
thoughtful governor sent agents to follow their footsteps, at- 
tend to their wants, and see that all their little needs were 
supplied while in health, and that they were properly cared for 
when sick. With Governor Morton, indeed, may be said to 
have originated the plan of sending State agents to visit and 
care for troops in the field ; and, throughout the war, his agents 
uniformly distanced those of all other States. A few days 
after, the governor tendered an additional six regiments to the 
President. His message to the Legislature, which he had called 
in extra session, was full of determined and lofty patriotism. 
Laying aside all party prejudices, he required only loyalty and 
capacity as the necessary qualifications for positions of influ- 
ence ; and so great, indeed, was the liberality shown by him to 
the Democracy, as to arouse the jealousy of the Eepublicans, 
who criticised his course with much severity during this special 
session. 

Meanwhile, the neighboring State of Kentucky was in a 
very precarious state. Its governor, Magoffin (at heart a seces- 
sionist), was endeavoring not only to play into the hands of the 
South by preventing Kentucky from joining the hosts of free- 
dom, but to draw Indiana, Ohio, and other northern border 
States also into their power, by inducing them to hold a po- 
sition of neutrality, and assume the character of sovereign medi- 
ators between Government and the seceded States. Governor 
Morton, however, was not deceived by this specious plea of neu- 
trality. He firmly rejected all propositions to that effect from 
Govr'-uor Magoffin ; and, desirous of keeping Kentucky " in 



HON, OLIVER PERRY MORTON. 323 

the Union," lie dispatched thither numbers of his own secret 
agents, by whom he was promptly advised of the plans and 
operations of the secessionists in every part of that State. On 
the 16th of September, 1861, Governor Morton received from 
one of these agents, information of Zollicoffer's advance into 
Kentucky, to a point some fourteen miles beyond the Tennessee 
line, and of a corresponding advance by Buckner's rebel force 
towards Louisville. The governor promptly countermanded 
an expedition under General Eousseau, which was just starting 
for St, Louis, and ordered the force to cross the Ohio into Ken- 
tucky — at the same time hastening every available man in 
Indiana, to the defence of Louisville, the safety of which was 
thus assured beyond a doubt. 

Fully convinced, now, that Kentucliy's neutrality was at an 
end, and that her soil was actually invaded by the rebels, Gov- 
ernor Morton withdrew his secret agents, and, appealing to his 
Hoosiers for help, to redeem the sister State from the enemy, 
he sent forward regiment after regiment into Kentucky, and 
before many months had passed, the Federals held Bowling 
Green, Zollicoffer was killed, his troops defeated at Mill Spring, 
and the soil of Kentucky cleared of rebels. This generous 
conduct endeared the governor to the Unionists of Kentucky, 
who virtually adopted him as their governor. "VVe cite an in- 
cident in point, " Shortly after Kentucky was cleared of rebel 
troops, a very Avealthy lady of Frankfort, the owner of a large 
number of slaves, visited some friends in Indianapolis, and on 
the second day of her visit inquired for Governor Morton. 
Upon ascertaining that he was absent, and would not return 
for several days, she prolonged her visit somewhat beyond the 
time she had intended to remain. The day for the governor's 
return having arrived, and he not appearing, the lady extended 
her visit still several days more, saying she would not leave In- 



324 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

dianapolis until she had seen him. A friend inquiring of her the 
reason why she was so anxious to see the Hoosier governor, she 
replied, " Because he is our governor, as well as yours, and has 
been ever since the beginning of the rebellion." And we are 
reminded, also, of the Indiana soldier, who interposed to stop 
an angry altercation in the streets of Frankfort, Kentucky, as 
to whether Magoffin (de facto), or Johnson (provisional), was 
governor of Kentucky, by the remark — " Hold on, gentlemen, 
you are all mistaken. I will settle this controversy. Neither 
of your men is governor of Kentucky, but Governor Morton, of 
Indiana, is governor of Kentucky, as his soldier-boys, with their 
blue coats and Enfield rifles, will soon show you." 

Despite the discouraging impressions produced upon the 
public mind, by the reverses to the national arms in the fall of 
1861, twenty volunteer regiments were added to the twenty-four 
Indiana regiments already in the field by the end of the year, 
a result of the ever-constant fidelity of Governor Morton in 
following the absent troops, securing their pay, attending to 
their personal wants, and providing for their families at home. 
But the same energy and fraternal care which inspired confidence 
in the volunteers, also excited envy and detraction at home, 
among a certain class of ambitious politicians and traitors to 
the national cause. Charges of mismanagement in State mili- 
tary matters, of corruption in official appointments and the 
awarding of contracts, became so frequent that, finally, in 
December, 1861, a Congressional Committee of Investigation 
visited Indianapolis, at the urgent and frequently repeated re- 
quest of the governor, and instituted a rigid examination of the 
management of the military affairs of the State. Their pub- 
lished report not only vindicated Governor Morton from all 
blame, but developed, in the most incontestable manner, his 
care to prevent fraud, peculation, and waste. It has been well 



HON. OLIVER PERRY MORTON, 325 

said of liim, at tliis period, that, " as the war progressed, and 
the execution of all plans proposed by him I'c.udtcd success- 
fully, he rose in the estimation of the President and Cabinet, 
until it was finally admitted by the knowing ones at Washing- 
ton, that his influence with the powers at that city was greater 
than that of any other man, outside of the national executive 
department, in the country. His thorough knowledge of the 
people of the northwest, his ready tact in adapting means to 
ends, his great forecasting and combining powers, and above all 
his energy and promptness in the performance of all labor 
assigned him, secured to him a deference which few men in the 
nation enjoyed ; and more than once was his presence requested, 
and his counsel solicited, in matters of the greatest importance 
to the Government." 

The depression of the public mind during the winter of 
1861-62, seemed only to rouse Governor Morton to still greater 
resolutions and endeavors ; and by his indefatigable exertions, 
six regiments, by the last of Februar}^, 1862, were added to the 
number of those already in the service. About the commence- 
ment of the year, a wide-spread and formidable western con- 
spiracy, in aid of the Southern Eebellion, was discovered to ex 
ist in most of the loyal States, known, in some places, as the 
"Star in the West," in others, as the "Self Protecting Broth- 
ers," " Sons of Liberty," etc., but most generally, as " The Order 
of American Knights," in af&liation Avith the southern society 
of " Knights of the Golden Circle." The order became quite 
popular in the southern counties of Indiana, and its members 
were especially virulent in denunciation of the administration, 
the " abolition war," and Governor ^[orton. Against him they 
especially charged, with a persistence which seemed to be 
proof against repeated denials, that he was instrumental in pro- 
curing the imposition, by Congress, of oppressive taxation ; and, 



326 MEN" OF OUR DAY. 

also, corruption in tlie appointment of the first State quarter 
master-general ; notwithstanding, in relation to the first charge, 
that he had by good engineering so managed, that Indiana's 
share of this taxation had been " oflfeet" by the sum due to the 
State, by the General Government, for advances made by the 
former in equipping the Indiana volunteers, etc., and in regard 
to the quartermaster, ignoring the fact, that that able officer, as 
well as many to whom he had given the best contracts, belonged 
to the Democratic party. More than this, also, they had the 
meanness to accuse Governor Morton of appropriating, secretly, 
to his own use, the county and personal donations made to sol- 
diers in camp ; although, the governor, as was well known, had 
borroAved on his own responsibility $600,000, with which he 
had paid bounties to regiments, which had refused to obey 
marching orders, unless they received the money. 

Indiana, indeed, at the commencement of the year 1863, was 
in a most precarious condition. Secret enemies had succeeded, 
by the most unscrupulous means, in securing the election, on 
what was familiarly known as the " butternut ticket," of a Le- 
gislature principally composed of men determinedly opposed to 
the prosecution of the war, and who had deliberately sought 
seats in that body for the purpose of thwarting all loyal effort, 
and encouraging the cause of rebellion. These men, from the 
first, evinced a fixed determination to insult the executive of the 
State, deprive him of all power, and seize in their own hands 
the entire control of every department of the State government. 
On the second day of the session, the Senate received from the 
governor the usual biennial message, and ordered it to be printed ; 
but the House refused to receive it, returned it to tJie governor, 
and passed a resolution receiving and adopting the message of 
the Governor of New York. Beginning its legislative career 
with this deliberate insult to the executive, it continued, during 



HON. OLIVER PERRY MORTON. 327 

its session of fifty-nine clays, to pursue its revolutionary policy 
witli increased violence, and an open disregard of constitutional 
obligations, and even of ordinary decency. Occupying its timo 
chiefly with the introduction of disloyal resolutions and tlic ut- 
terance of factious and treasonable sentiments, which were calcu- 
lated to incite the people to resistance to Government, all the 
necessary and legitimate subjects of legislation were disregarded 
or kept back ; and, during the entire session, with a quorum in 
each House, every appropriation was suppressed until the last 
day, (when it was known that a quorum could not bo had in the 
House,) except that for their own per diem and mileage, which 
was passed on the first day of the session. 

This dastardly conduct, of course, burdened Governor Morton 
and the loyal officers of the State government with an immense 
load of responsibility. The benevolent institutions, the State 
arsenal, the soldiers in tne field and hospital, the soldiers' fami- 
lies at home, the pay due the " Legion " for services at various 
times in repelling invasion on the border, the corps of special 
surgeons, military claims, the State debt, and the numerous other 
important measures and objects requiring prompt and liberal 
appropriations, were left utterly unattended to — although there 
was m-oney enough in the treasury — by a set of men who did 
not forget to draw their own pay and mileage, and appropriate 
nearly $20,000 to the State printer. 

But the governor was nothing daunted by this disgraceful and 
perplexing state of affairs. Believing that to close the asylums 
would be a shame and a disgrace — a crime against humanity 
itself — and that to call back the Legislature, after their dastardly 
conduct of the previous session, would be not only useless but 
perilous to the peace and the best interests of the State, he 
established a bureau of finance, and so great a degree of success 
attended his efforts in obtaining money that he was enabled sue- 



328 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

cessfully to carry on all tlie institutions of the State, and keep 
the machinery of government in motion, until the next regular 
meeting of the Legislature. 

On. the 20th of July, 1863, Governor Morton, being in Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio, received the compliment of a request from the 
common council of that city, that he would sit for his portrait, 
to be hung in the City Hall, as a fitting remembrance of the 
indebtedness felt by the citizens to him for his services during 
the war. On the 23d of February, 1864, the Union State Con- 
vention placed bis name at the head of the Union ticket for 
1861. It Avas v.'ith the commencement of this campaign "that 
the great work of Governor Morton's life began ; a work more 
varied and arduous than, perhaps, was ever undertaken by any 
other State executive." The " Democratic " Legislature of 1863 
had, with the aid of the State ofl&cers of that period, surrounded 
him with such embarrassments that the performance of his civil 
functions was a most difficult and complicated task. Frequent 
calls for new levies of troops, the organization of regiments, 
and their preparation for the field, greatly increased his military 
labors. The wants of the sick and wounded soldiers at the front 
were daily multiplying, and thousands of dependent families at 
home had to be supported. The governor's well-known supe- 
riority in council, the ability which marked the success which 
attended his plans and measures, induced frequent demands for 
his presence at Washington. And yet, not only were these du- 
ties — civil and military, official and extra-official — not neglected, 
but they were performed with a readiness, skill and complete- 
ness which marked Governor Morton as one of the most extra- 
ordinary men of his times, and covered the name of Indiana 
with glory. In addition to all this, he gave his own personal 
attention to the campaign, delivering frequent speeches, which 
were powerful, and productive of incalculable good. Towards 



HO>r. OLIVER PERRY MORTON. 320 

the close, also, of the campaign, tlic atrocious designs of tlie 
" Sons of Liberty " seemed about to culminate in open revolt 
and anarchy. Over eighty thousand members, as was afterwards 
proved, existed in the State, thoroughly armed, waiting for the 
signal, to rise at the polls on election day, and Governor Morton's 
life was especially marked. But he was prepared for the emer- 
gency ; his secret detectives were operating in every part of the 
State, and by their dexterity, the executive was constantly and 
promptly advised of all the schemes and designs of the con- 
spirators, lie possessed the knowledge of their financial re- 
sources, their military force and plans, their places of rendez- 
vous, their purchases of arms, and, through his agents, was " on 
hand " at every point, to foil every move, break up every plot, 
and suppress every incipient outbreak of disloyalty. Yet he 
wisely deferred any open, complete exposure of the " Sons of 
Liberty " until after the election, when a military court of in- 
quiry was convened, before which the Indiana ringleaders of 
treason were tried, convicted and punished. This detective 
work was the most important of the many signal services ren- 
dered to the State by Governor Morton ; and not to the State 
only, but to the Government of the United States itself. 

The Governor was re-elected by a sweeping majority, and 
under the new draft, the men of Indiana sprung promptly for- 
ward to the aid of Government. It was no longer — thanks to 
Governor Morton's labors for the soldiers — a disgrace to belong 
to an Indiana regiment, and soldiers of other States were fre- 
quently heard to say to the "Hoosier boys:" "We wouldn't 
mind fighting, if we had such a governor as you have." 

" During the winter of 1865," says a friend of the governor, 
" he was the most ubiquitous man in the United States. First 
at Washington, in council with the President ; then at the front, 
surveying with his own eyes the battle-field ; moving in person 



830 MEN OP OUR DAY, 

tlirough tlie hospitals, ascertaining the wants of the sick u_i 
wounded ; supervising the operations of his nua erous agents ; 
then at home, directing sanitary movements, appointing extra 
surgeons and sending them to the field, projecting new plans for 
the relief of dependent women and children, attending personally 
to all the details of the business of his olTice." And, when the 
war came to a gloriovis termination, he was the first to welcome 
the returning heroes to the State capital, where they were sump- 
tuously entertained, at the public expense; promptly furnished 
with their pay, and sent rejoicing to their homes, with no un- 
necessary delay — feeling that their governor cared for them, as 
a father doth for his children. And, then, when the rush of 
business was over — when, for the first time in five years, he felt 
in some degree relieved from the immense weight of official 
responsibility and embarrassment, of gigantic difficulties he had 
been obliged to combat in placing Indiana in the front rank of 
loyal States ; of his intense and incessant anxiety for the success 
of the Union cause — then the high strung frame gave way, 
and in the summer of 1865, he was attacked with paral^'sis. 
Accordingly, by the advice of his physicians, he embarked with 
his family for Italy, followed by the prayers of thousands of 
loving hearts in Indiana, and by the respect of the nation. 
After his return to this country, he was elected to the United 
States Senate, on the Eepublican ticket, and as the successor of 
Hon. Henry S. Lane, for the term ending March, 4th, 1873. 

In the Senate, though embarrassed and restrained from the 
active labors he so much desires to perform, by the still feeble 
condition of his health, the result of those years of overwork, 
he has yet rendered excellent service to the country ho so 
ardently loves. As a member of the important Committees on 
Foreign Eelations, on Military Affairs, and on Agriculture, his 
counsels have been of great advantage to the Senate. His 



HOX. OLIVER PERRY MORTON. 331 

speech on reconstruction, delivered in the winter of 1868, was 
the most profoundly logical and able argument on that subject 
delivered in the Senate, — and even the enemies of reconstruc- 
tion acknowledged its power. 

When the time shall conic, as come it will, when a grateful 
country shall rear statues to the men whose patriotic loyalty, 
great executive ability, and active, comprehensive intellect 
contributed most signally to the triumph of freedom and right, 
amid that host of heroes and martyrs, two names shall stand 
forth resplendent with glory and honor, the names of John 
Albion Andrew and Oliver Perry Morton. On these, 
the highest art of the sculptor shall be lavished, and fair 
hands shall crown the brows of these impersonations of the 
most loyal and gifted of American Governors with impel ishable 
laurels. 



GOVERNOR RICHARD YATES. 




^"^^^^'^MONG tlie many lojcal governors of States, who seemed, 
ik during their country's hour of peril, to be providentially 
and emphatically " the right men in the right places." 
® Richard Yates, Governor of Illinois, was conspicu- 
ous for earnest patriotism, great executive abilit}^ and prudence 
and burning eloquence. Born at Warsaw, Gallatin county, 
Kentucky, on the 18th of January, 1818, he became, by his 
father's removal, a resident of Springfield, Illinois, in the year 
1831. Enjoying the advantages of a liberal education, he 
graduated from Illinois College at Jacksonville ; and subse- 
quently studied the profession of law with Colonel J. J. Hardin, 
who fell in the Mexican War. Entering upon the active 
practice of his profession, he mingled also Avith considerable 
success in politics, and represented his district in the Illinois 
Legislature in 1842, 1843, 1844, 1845, 1848, and 1319. Tn 1850 
he received the Congressional nomination of a Whig Convention, 
and was elected; finding himself, when he took his seat in the 
Thirty-second Congress, the youngest member of that body. 
The next year, despite a change in the district, which, it was 
supposed, secured it to the opposite party, he was re-elected 
over Mr. John Calhoun, a popular leader of the opposition. 
At the next election, however, he was defeated ; his district 

Bustaining, by its vote, Senator Douglas's Nebraska Bill. In 
332 



GOVERNOR RICHARD YATES. 333 

Congress he proved himself a stern, persistent, uncompromising 
antagonist of every movement for the extension of the area of 
slave territory; and his opposition to the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise, marked him as a firm and able member, whose 
opinions Avere entitled to respect. Eeceiving, in 1850, the 
nomination of the Republican 'State Convention, as its candidate 
lor governor, he was elected, after a most spirited and exciting 
canvass. His inaugural message to the General Assembly of 
the State, on the l-ith of January, 18G1, had the ring of true 
and lofty patriotism. Much space was devoted to a consider- 
ation, of the critical condition of the national fortunes ; and in 
discussing them, he showed that, while disposed to tender to 
the Southern States every lawful measure of pacification, the 
State of Illinois, as represented by its chief executive officer, 
wouLl maintain the Union and vindicate the right of consti- 
tutional majorities. 

The first call for troops, made by the Secretary of "War 
found Illinois, as well as most of the Northern States, without 
an available, efficient, armed and organized militia ; with an 
appalling scarcity of arms and munitions of war, and in a 
general state of unpreparedness. But, on the same day on 
which the governor received the call of the War Department, 
he convened a special session of the Legislature, to be held on 
the 23d of April. His proclamation was itself a stirring, 
eloquent appeal to the patriotism of the imperial State over 
w^hich he presided, and it fell with magic power upon waiting 
and loyal hearts. Within ten days, over ten thousand men had 
tendered their services. Illinois was "on the border," and 
liable to immediate invasion, and when, on the 19th of April, 
Governor Yates received from the War Dapartment, a telegram 
instructing him to send a brigadier-general to Cairo — a valuable 
stragetic point, at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi 



384 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

rivers — ^he put forth all his energies to meet the demand. 
Telegraphing to General Swift, at Chicago — that of&cer, with 
four pieces of artillery and four hundred and ninety-five men, 
started at once (on the 2d) for Cairo, followed by other batteries 
and military organizations, which left as they could get 
ready, and " stood not on the order of their going," arriving 
ai the rendezvous the morning of the 22d. Others continued 
to pour in rapidly, until sufficient numbers were on the spot to 
form the first brigade (six regiments) of Illinois volunteers. 
The work of arming and defence which had been thus promptly 
inaugurated by Governor Yates, was speedily indorsed by the 
action of the Legislature, who made liberal appropriations and 
left no means untried to place the State on a proper war 
footing. During the year 1861, Illinois placed at the disposal 
of the General Government, fifteen thousand more men than 
had been asked for ; and when, in July, 1862, the President 
called for three hundred thousand volunteers. Governor Yates 
issued a proclamation to his people, which rang like a clarion 
note of inspired loyalty through the length and breadth of the 
State. He also wrote to President Lincoln the folloAving 
earnest letter. 

Executive Department, Sprin'gfield, 111, July 11th, 1862. 
President Lincoln, Washington, D. G. 

" The crisis of the war and our natural existence is upon us. 
The time has come for the adojition of more decisive measures. 
Greater vigor and earnestness must be infused into our military- 
movements. Blows must be struck at the vital parts of the 
rebellion. The Government should employ every available 
means, compatible with the rules of war, to subject the traitors. 
Summon to the standard of the Eepublic all men willing to 
fight for the Union. Let loyalty, and that alone, be the dividing 
line between the nation and its foes. Generals should not be 
permitted to fritter away the sinews of our brave men in guard- 



OOVERN'OR RICHARD YATES, 335 

fng the property of traitors; and in driving back into their 
liaiids loyal blacks, who oft'er us their labor, and seek shelter 
beneath the Federal flag. Shall we sit supinely by, and see 
the war sweep off the youth and strength of the land, and refuse 
aid from that class of men, who are, at least, worthy foes of 
traitors and the murderers of our Government and of our 
children. Our armies should be directed to forage on the 
enemy, and to cease paying traitors and their abettors exorbi- 
tant exactions for food needed by the sick or hungry soldier. 
TiTild and conciliatory means have been tried in vain to recall 
the rebels to their allegiance. The conservative policy has utterly 
failed to reduce traitors to obedience, and to restore the supre- 
macy of the laws. They have, by means of sweeping conscrip- 
tions, gathered in countless hordes, and threaten to beat back 
and overwhelm the armies of the Union. With blood and 
trc-ason in their hearts, they flaunt the black flag of rebellion in 
the place of the Government, and threaten to butcher our brave 
and loyal armies with foreign bayonets. They are enlisting 
negroes and merciless savages in their behalf. 

" Mr. Lincoln, the crisis demands greater and sterner mea- 
sures. Proclaim anew the good old motto of tbe republic, 
' Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable ;' 
and accept the services of all loyal men^ and it will be in your 
power to stamp armies out of the earth — irresistible armies that 
will bear our banners to certain victory. In any event, Illinois, 
already alive with beat of drum, and resounding Avith the 
tramp of new recruits, will respond to your call. Adopt this 
policy, and she will leap like a flaming giant into the fight. 

"This policy for the conduct of the war will render foreign 
intervention impossible, and the arms of the republic invincible; 
it will bring the conflict to a speedy close, and secure peace on 
a permanent basis." 

Illinois trembled, from centre to periphery, with the enthu- 
filasm kindled in the hearts of her citizens by these words of her 
chief magistrate, and b}^ the stirring events of the times. In 
less than eleven days {thirteen being the. time allowed by the War 



J?36 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

DepartyneyU), in (he midst of harvest season, and mi:hout resort to a 
draft, over ffty thousand men volunteered in the army of the re- 
'public, from the State of Illinois. In strong contrast, however, to 
this action on the part of the people, was that of their repre- 
sentatives who formed the General Asssembly of 1863-4. 

It would seem as if no heart among them could have beeD 
deaf to the fiery eloquence of the governor's message, of which 
we present the closing sentences : 

"I can think of no peace worth having, short of crushing out 
the rebellion, and the complete restoration of the authority of 
the government. The only way to honorable and permanent 
peace is through war — desolating, exterminating war. We 
must move on the enemy's works. We must move forward 
with tremendous energy, with accumulated thousands of men, 
and the most terrible enginery of war. This will be the short- 
est road to peace, and be accompanied with the least cost of 
life and treasure in the end. 

" If our brave boys shall fall in the field, we must bury the 
dead, take care of and bring home the sick and wounded, and 
send fresh battalions to fill up the broken ranks, and to deal out 
death, destruction, and desolation to the rebels. AVe might 
talk of compromise, if it aft'ected us alone, but it would aftect 
our children's children in all the years of the future. The 
interests to be affected are far reaching, and universal to 
humanity, and lasting as the generations of mankind. I have 
never had my faith in the perpetual union of these States to 
falter. I believe this infernal rebellion can be — ought to be — ■ 
and will be subdued. Tlie land may be left a howling waste, 
desolated by the bloody footsteps of war, from Delaware Bay to 
the Gulf, but our territory shall remain unmutilated, the country 
shall be one, and it shall be free in all its broad boundaries, 
from Maine to the Gulf, and from ocean to ocean. 

" In any event may we be able to act a worthy part in the 
trying scenes through' which we are passing ; and should the 
star of our dostin}^ sink to rise no more, 'may we feel for our- 



GOVERNOR RICHARD YATES, 337 

selves, and may history preserve our record clear bcfoi-e heaven 
and earth, and hand down tlie testimony to our children, that 
we have done all, periled and endured all to perpetuate the 
priceless heritage of Liberty and Union unimpaired to our 
posterity." 

Unmindful, however, of the solemnity and magnitude of the 
issues then pending, a majority of these representatives disre- 
garded the wise and patriotic suggestions of the governor's 
message reccommending legislative provisions for taking the 
votes of the State's troops then in the field ; the erection of a 
hospital or soldier's home ; liberal bounties to volunteers, etc. 
And their conduct was so far regardless of the dignity and best 
interests of the State, as to render necessary the exercise of ex- 
treme parliamentary strategy in order to prevent legislation 
which would inevitably have blasted the fair fame of the State. 
Finally, availing himself of a disagreement between the two 
houses as to the time of final adjournment. Governor Yates 
exercised a power placed in his hands by the constitution and 
prorogued the Legislature until the olst of December, 186-i, the 
day when its legal existence would terminate by law — and that 
body, upon whom the blow fell like a thunderbolt, were thus? 
saved from disgracing themselves and their constituents. 

With the close of 1864, closed, also, Governor Yates's guber- 
natorial record, of which it has been fitly said, that "it was 
providential that a man with his spirit and activity was in the 
executive chair. He was as fully committed to freedom as 
against slavery, nor did he ever falter in his position. He 
stood as an iron pillar, when locally in a minority, and waited 
for the day when truth should triumph. As governor he was 
the soldier's friend. On the field he went with them under 
fire, used every possible exertion to forward them sanitary 

supplies, to bring the wounded into hospitals and to their homes. 
22 



338 MEN OF OUR DAT. 

The soldier's wife or widow could secure audience wten officers 
were turned away." 

It was no wonder tliat when his official term as governor 
expired, a strong, popular demand was made for his eleva- 
tion to another position of influence. He was now elected, on 
the Union Eepublican ticket, to the Senate of the United States 
in the place of W. A. Richardson, Democrat, and took his seat 
in 1865, for a term which will empire March 4th, 1871. We 
must not forget, also, that the repeal of the " Black Code," in 
February, 1865, by which Illinois erased from her statute book 
laws at variance with the dictates of humanity, as well as with 
her own later record on the subject of slavery, was largely 
owing to Governor Yates' fiery vehemence of oratory and 
argument, and to the weight of personal influence which he 
threw into its public discussion. 

Of late it has been often asserted that Senator Yates had fallen 
into habits of intemperance : and though the statements on the 
subject have been exaggerated, there is no doubt that they had 
some foundation in truth, though never to the extent of his ap- 
pearing, as some others have done, in his place in the Senate 
in a grossly intoxicated condition. Recently, he has published 
an address to the people of Illinois, in which, frankly admitting 
and humbly confessing his past delinquencies in this respect, he 
says that he has reformed and that he " will comi^el their confi- 
dence, not by pledges, but by a course of conduct scrupulously 
correct," and that notwithstanding their "justifiable distrust, 
looking to God," to his family, his State, and his high duty, he 
" shall not despair, but look forward to an unclouded future." 

The moral courage which could prompt such a confession 
and appeal to his constituents is so lofty and noble, that we can- 
not bu. hope strongly that this brave and gallant man is to be 
spared from further disgrace and dishonor and yet to do great 
service to the nation. 



I 



HON. GEORGE S. BOUTWELL. 




,03 

EORGE S. BOUTWELL was born in Brookline, 



Massachusetts, January 28tli, 1818. In April, 1820, 
his parents removed to Lunenburg, where they lived 
on a farm until 1863, when both died, his mother in 
March, and his father in July. His mother was of the Marshall 
family. Mr. Boutwell's father was a man of good abilities, 
and was twice a member of the Massachusetts House of Repre- 
sentatives, and a member of the Constitutional Convention of 
1853. Mr. Boutwell learned to read at a very early age, stand- 
ing at his mother's knee, while she read the large family Bible. 
The result was that he learned to read as the type setters read, 
" by the word method." 

As he grew up he could not remember the time when he 
could not read. He went to the public school six or seven very 
brief summer terms, and to perhaps as many private schools, of 
a few weeks each, and usually kept by the same teacher. He 
attended winter schools until, and including, his sixteenth birth- 
day. The next winter he taught a school in Shirley, Massa- 
chusetts. 

At that time he had thoroughly mastered Arithmetic, and 
learned something of Latin, Algebra, Geometry, Astronomy, 
Natural Philosophy and History. He studied these branches, 

in school and out, under most unfavorable circumstances. 

339 



340 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

When nearly thirteen years old he went into a country store 
at Lunenburg and remained there four years. In March, 1835, 
he went to Groton, entering upon the mercantile business and 
continuing there as clerk or partner for several years. The 
early facility in reading, gained at his mother's knee, created a 
taste for study, and an insatiable thirst for knowledge. 

In the second story of the store where he served as clerk, 
there was kept an old, but choice and well selected library. 
This was a mine of wealth to young Boutwell. In the absence 
of customers, and so far as fidelity to his employer permitted, 
he read during the day. But at nine o'clock, when the store 
closed, he repaired promptly to the library and there read till 
overcome by drowsiness, when he roused himself by some 
physical exercise, and continued his reading. When sleep 
again asserted its claims, he plunged his head in a pail of water; 
at hand for that purpose, and under that renewed stimulus 
read on till an unduly late hour of the night. The fact that 
at this early age, with such meagre school advantages, and 
while so closely occupied with farm work and clerk service, 
he had made so large attainments in the studies named, and 
that he was able to teach school at sixteen, shows his enthu- 
siasm in the work of self-culture, his unusual quickness in 
learning, and invincible energy in pursuing his studies, in the 
face of manifold difiiculties. 

When only eighteen jenrs of age he commenced, systematical- 
ly, the study of law, and entered his name in an attorney's office, 
studying at odd times, chiefly nights. At the same time he 
renewed the study of Latin, under Dr. A. B. Bancroft, and read 
Yirgil, and other Latin authors. While an active member of 
the Legislature, in the winter of 1842—43, he resumed the study 
of French under Count Laporte, which he had previously 
pursued without a teacher, devoting for several months one 



HON". GEORGE S. BOUTWELL. 341 

half hour a day to this study. For six years his thirst for 
knowledge almost consumed him. lie devoted every moment 
he could command to study, working till midnight, and often 
till one, two, or even three o'clock in the morning. This zeal 
was self-prompted, and without the stimulus of a teacher or 
any rival companions. This excessive labor injured his health, 
and in 1841-42, he was obliged to diminish his hours of study. 
At nineteen he delivered his first public lecture before the 
Groton Lyceum. In 18-40, he entered the political contest iu 
favor of Mr. Van Buren. At the age of twenty-one, he was 
elected a member of the school committee in Groton, a large 
town of more than usual wealth and culture. The esteem in 
which he was held by his fellow-townsmen is also sliown by 
the fact that in the same year he was the candidate of the 
Democratic party for the Legislature and though defeated the 
first two years, continued to be their candidate for ten years. 
He was a member of the legislature in 1842, '43, '44, '47, '48, '49, 
and '50. He soon became a prominent and influential member, 
and surpassed all by his thorough mastery of the subjects 
which he discussed and by his readiness and ability in debate. 
He successfully advocated the questions of retrenchment of 
expenses, enlargement of the school fund, and Harvard college 
reform. 

The legislation on these subjects, and especially in leference 
to Harvard college, was mainly due to his efforts. Between 
1842 and 1850, he was Eailway Commissioner, Bank Commis- 
sioner, Commissioner on Boston Harbor, and a member of 
special State Committees upon the subject of Insanity, and upon 
the Public Lands in Maine, In all those years he gave numer- 
ous Lyceum lectures, and political addresses. In 1844, '46, and 
'48, he was the candidate of the Democratic party for Congress. 

He was nominated for the office of governor, in 1849-50, and 



342 MEN OF" OUR DAY. 

was elected to that office iu 1851, and 1852. In the State 
Legislature and Constitutional Convention of 1S53, he was"^ 
early recognized as a leader. He was familiar with parliamen- 
tary rules, was always in order, never prolix, speaking merely 
to be heard or without something to say, but always aimed 
directly at the point, and of course at all times had the ear of 
the Convention. He united firmness with conciliation and 
exhibited fairness, tolerance, and courtesy to opponents. 

In the Constitutional Convention, Rufus Choate was his lead- 
ing opponent. Early in the session, Mr. Choate, by a most elo- 
quent speech, had won the admiration of the Convention. The 
subject was " Town Eepresentation." Mr. Boutwell rose to 
reply. His apparent temerity in meeting the most brilliant 
member on the Whig side, quite surprised those who did not 
know him. But the apprehension of a damaging comparison, 
or a failure, at once passed away. He enchained the attention 
of the Convention, and maintained his cause with signal 
ability. He prepared and reported the Constitution which was 
submitted to the people and adopted. The same year he 
became a member of the " State Board of Education." It was 
a deserved tribute to his clear judgment and substantial educa- 
tion, that Massachusetts, ever proud of her public schools, 
should call one without collegiate culture to succeed the classi- 
cal Barnas Sears, and the eloquent and enthusiastic Horace 
Mann. He was connected with this board ton years, and, as its 
secretary for five years, acquitted himself with marked ability. 
His five annual reports, his commentary on the school laws of 
Massachusetts, and his volume on " Educational Topics and 
Institutions," rank high in the educational literature of the 
country. From. 1851 to 1860, he was a member of the Board 
of Overseers of Harvard college. In 1856, he was elected a 
member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences ; in 
1861, a member of the Phi Beta Kappa of Cambridge, and de- 



HON. GEORGE S. BOUTWELL, 343 

livered tbe commencement oration. Political subjects, according 
to usage and obvious propriety, are avoided on such occasions, 
but in this crisis of tbe nation, officers of college and of tbe 
society called upon tbe ex-governor to discuss freely tbe state 
of tbe country. His oration, after sbowing tbat slavery was tbe 
cause of tbe war, demonstrated tbe justice and necessity of 
emancipation. It was in advance of tbe times, and was severely 
censured, not only by Democrats but by many Republican 
leaders and papers. It was published entire in various jour- 
nals, and circulated widely tbrougb tbe country, and hastened 
tbe great revolution of public sentiment on this subject more 
than any address by any American statesman during the first 
year of tbe war. 

Immersed in public affairs since bis majority, no other man 
of his age in Massachusetts has been so long and constantly 
in tbe public service. No other man living, in tbat State, has 
held so many, varied and responsible offices, in each of which 
his course has been marked by integrity, fidelity, and ability. 

To tbe young bis life is a fit example of tbe cardinal virtues 
of industry, uprightness, and frugality, of strict temperance, and 
unwearied perseverance. He continues to reside in Groton, 
where he maintains the same simplicity of rural life and 
character, the same kind and genial spirit, the same accessi- 
bility to all classes, which marked his early years. He is still 
a practical farmer, and takes the deepest interest in his crops 
and stock, and applies the latest improvements in agricul- 
ture to bis land, so tbat it is deservedly called a model farm. 
Among his neighbors, with whom be is still a favorite, be talks 
as familiarly of Cotswolds and Soutbdowns, of Dcvons, Dur- 
hams, and Alderneys, as if farming had been his only business. 
He has given many lectures on agriculture, and addresses at 
" Cattle Shows." 



3-i4 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

Mr, Boutwell is not a politician, but a statesman. In all 
his history, his faith has been in truth, in right, in justice aiul 
principle, and not in art and scheming, in management and 
chicanery. Fidelity to principle has marked his whole career. 
He has ever been an earnest and consistent advocate of the 
rights of man. He left the Democratic party upon the repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise in 185-i, his last vote with that 
party being in 1853. He was a leader in the organization of 
the Eepublican party in Massachusetts, and was a delegate to 
the Baltimore Convention, in 186-i ; was a member of the Peace 
Congress in 1861 ; organized the new Department of Internal 
Revenue, and served as Commissioner until 1862, when he 
resigned to take his seat in Congress. He served on the 
Judiciary Committee, in the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Con- 
gress, and was one of the managers in the Impeachment case. 

Mr. Boutwell is a man of judicial mind, instinctive sagacity 
strong memory, iron will, indomitable perseverance, great 
power of mental concentration, and entire self-command. His 
energies never seem to flag. His fine voice, distinct articula- 
tion and deliberate but earnest delivery, make him an impres- 
sive speaker. His style is clear and vigorous. He is too 
earnest to deal in sallies of wit, the play of imagination or 
ornaments of rhetoric, but he is always sincere and impressive. 
His mind, while full in information, patient in details, and 
accurate in the minutest point, is naturally comprehensive, and 
tends to broad and rapid generalizations. Though fitted by 
taste, nature, and culture, to be a statesman, and able to fill 
almost any sphere of administrative or judicial service, he seems 
fashioned to be a Congressman. He has trained himself to 
" think on his legs." He enjoys debate, excels in forensic con- 
tests, and seems always strongest in the closest grapple of men- 
tal combat. 



HON. REVERDY JOHNSON. 



f^EVEEDY JOHNSON was born in Annapolis, Maryland, 
1^' on the 21st of May, 1796. He was tlie son of the Hon. 
John Johnson, who was the chief judge of the first 
judicial district of Maryland from 1811 until 1821, when 
he was appointed chancellor of the State of Maryland. 

Eeverdy Johnson studied law with his father, and entered 
upon practice in Prince George's county, and in the city of An- 
napolis, in his native State. While pursuing his profession, he 
was engaged in reporting the decisions of the Court of Appeals 
of Maryland, having prepared the greater part of the well-known 
series of seven volumes of Harris and Johnson's Eeports, which 
extended to some time in the year 1826. 

While pursuing this employment, and engaging in the active 
practice of his profession, he was appointed a deputy attorney - 
general of Maryland. 

In 1817, he removed to the city of Baltimore. In 1820, he 
was appointed chief commissioner of insolvent debtors. He held 
this ofiice until 1821, when he was elected to the Senate of Mary- 
land. In this body he served for two years, and was re-elected, 
and served nearly two years longer as a State Senator. He then 
resigned the of&ce, in order to devote himself to a rapidly in- 
creasing practice, which he pursued until 1845, Avith distin- 
guished ability and success, reaching, by general consent, the 
leadership of the Maryland bar. 



S45 



846 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

In 18-i5, lie was elected a Senator in Congi;ess. He retained 
this position until 1849, when he resigned it to accept the office 
of Attorney-General of the United States, tendered him by 
President Taylor. Upon the death of that President, he retired 
from office, and continued to practice in the Supreme Court ol 
the United States, in which he had established a great and well- 
deserved reputation as a jurist. He was obliged, by the exi- 
gency of the times, and by his own disposition to use every 
effort to restore tranquillity to the country, to re-enter political 
life in 1861. In that year he was a delegate to the Peace Con- 
gress. In 1862 he was elected, by the Legislature of Maryland, 
a Senator in Congress for the term commencing in 1863 and 
ending March 4th, 1869. 

His distinguished services in the Senate, during the period of 
the rebellion, and his masterly and vigorous efforts to maintain 
the supremacy of the Constitution and the laws during the pro- 
gress of the rebellion, and after its termination, are well known 
to the whole country. 

During the term of President Lincoln, he was sent to New 
Orleans, for the purpose of adjusting grave questions which had 
arisen with foreign governments, by reason of the alleged undue 
exercise of military and civil authority by the general then 
commanding in Louisiana. His action in restraining and cor- 
recting the abuses, which he had been requested to remedy, was 
fully approved of by the Government at Washington. 

Since the close of the rebellion, Mr. Johnson has, with signal 
ability, manifested his devotion to the Constitution of the United 
States. He has uniformly insisted that this instrument was as 
binding upon ourselves as upon those who sought to violate it 
in 1861. His selection as a member of the joint select com- 
mittee on reconstruction was most judicious, for no member of 



HON. REVERDY JOHNSON. 847 

the Senate was .more tliorouglily informed on tlic subject or 
more impartial. 

The debates in the Senate bear testimony to the earnest zeal 
with which he has endeavored to confine all parties and sections 
of the country within the boundaries of constitutional law. In 
so doing, he has not ministered to the prejudices or hostilities 
of any political organization, in order to win popularity or pro- 
mote his personal ambition. lie has steadily disregarded the 
dictates of popular clamor and popular passion, and has been 
content to pursue that course which will secure to him the appro- 
bation of all good men and the applause of posterity. His 
political action has been so calm and impartial as to be wholly 
judicial in character. This quality of mind, singularly dis- 
played through his senatorial career. Was never more distinctly 
marked than during the trial of the President before the Senate. 

Eeverdy Johnson will retire from the Senate on March 4th, 
1869. AVe have the promise, so far as men may judge, that a 
long career of usefulness remains for him. He will carry with 
him into retirement the respect and confidence of men of all 
opinions as a jurist and as a statesman. 



HON. JAMES W. NYE. 



UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM NEVADA. 




a foreigner studying the organization of our local 
governments, and the method by which they are repre- 
sented in our national legislature, it would seem almost 
inevitable that the Senators and Eepresentatives from 
the newly constituted States, should be men of mediocre talent 
and very moderate culture. " The population," he would 
reason, "in these States is small, and necessarily composed of 
rough men, enterprising indeed, but possessed rather of physi- 
cal than intellectual activity, and of little or no educatioa 
Such a population will, naturally, choose men of their own 
class for these positions, and the result must be a serious deteri- 
oration in the average ability of the members of the national 
parliament." 

The foreigner in this case would reason logically, but the facts 
controvert his reasoning. The early settlers of our new States 
and territories, are not all rough men, in whom the physical 
nature is dominant ; some, yes, many of the pioneers, though 
perhaps men of brawn and muscle, are yet men of brilliant 
talents and profound mental culture ; men thoroughly versed in 
all the intellectual and political questions which agitato the 
communities farther east ; men of great executive ability, and 
348 



HON. JAMES "W. XYE. 849 

capable of filling -with honor and diguitj any station in the 
republic. 

To this class belongs the able and eloquent Senator whose 
name heads this sketch. James W. Nye was born in Madison 
county, New York, June 10th, 1815. In that rich and fertile 
county he led the life of a farmer's boy, enjoying the advantage 
of superior schools, and acquiring the foundations of a good 
education, while developing a physical frame of rugged health, 
great muscular strength, and remarkable powers of endurance. 
As he arrived at the verge of manhood, his thirst for intellectual 
culture grew more intense, and he manifested remarkable ability 
as a speaker. After obtaining a good academic education, he 
devoted himself to the study of the law, rather from the fact of 
that profession being the stepping stone to a political career, 
than from any special fondness for the practice of law. 

In course of time he came to New York, and while practising 
his profession to some extent, he entered actively into political 
life, and soon became conspicuous for his eloquence, fearless- 
ness, and thorough mastery of all political questions. He was 
affiliated with the Free Soil movement from the beginning, and 
on the organization of the Republican party, became one of its 
members, and was active in opposing the Kansas-Nebraska bill 
and in laboring earnestly for the election of Fremont in 1856. 
His party were then as now in the minority in New York city, 
but such positions as were within their gift were freely offered 
to the eloquent and fearless advocate of their principles. Ho 
was one of the police commissioners under the Metropolitan 
police act, in 1860 and 1861. In the campaign which ended in 
Mr. Lincoln's election in 1860, Mr. Nye was one of the hardest 
and most successful workers. His clear convincing logic, his 
utter fearlessness, and the winning eloquence which led thou- 
sands into the ranks of the supporters of "Honest Abe Lincoln," 



350 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

made his services more in demand than those of almost any 
other public speaker. When the war came, he was ready and 
willing to devote himself to his country's service, but the 
President believed he could render more effective benefit to 
the nation as the governor of the new territory of Nevada, 
which needed the moulding influences of just such a man to 
leai its people aright. He was appointed governor of the 
territory in 1861, and had in his administration so won upon 
the hearts of the people, that when, in 1865, Nevada was ad- 
mitted into the Union as a State, he was her first choice as 
United States Senator. He was chosen first for four years, 
and his colleague for two. But so determined were the people 
to retain him in the Senate, that, in 1867, they elected him 
again for six years, from that date, and gave his colleague the 
remainder of his term. In the Senate he has been chairman of 
the committee on revolutionary claims, and an active member 
of the committees on naval affairs, and qu territories. 

In that sad, sad journey to accompany the dust of the nation's 
sainted martyr to his last resting place in Illinois, Senator Nye 
was one of the committee of the Senate to take part in the 
mourning cortege. 

Senator Nye does not often take part in the Senatorial debates, 
but when he does speak, it is always on the right side, and his 
speeches are so full of facts, arguments, and unction, that they 
are listened to with interest by the entire Senate. 



REV. WILLIAM GANNAWAY BROWNLOW. 



fEV. WILLIAM GANNAAVAY BEOWNLOW, the 
patriotic and heroic Journalist, Governor, and Senator 
^' of Eastern Tennessee, was born in Wj^the County, 
W Virginia, on the 29th of August, 1805. He was the 
eldest son of Joseph A. Brownlow, a native of Rockbridge 
County, Virginia, who was characterized by his old associates 
and friends (among them General Sam. Houston), as possessing 
good sense, great independence, and sterling integrity. He was 
also a private in a Tennessee company during the " War of 
1812," and two of his brothers were engaged in the battle at 
Uoi'seshoe, under General Jackson, while two other brothers 
were oflGicers in the American Navy, and died in the service. 
Joseph Brownlow died in Sullivan County, East Tennessee, in 
1816, leaving his widow, Catharine G anna way — a Virginian 
likewise — burdened with the care of five children, three sons 
and two daughters, all of whom are now dead, except the sub- 
ject of our sketch. In less than three months from the time 
of her husband's demise, she also died, and the children were 
left to the charity of relatives and friends. Young William, 
now in his eleventh year, was taken by his mother's family, by 
whom he was brought up to hard labor, until he was eighteen 
years old, when he removed to Abingdon, Virginia, where he 

commenced an apprenticeship as a house carpenter. 

351 



352 MEN OF OUE DAY. 

Of course, bis education, under the unfavorable circumstancea 
of his earlier years, was imperfect and irregular, " even," as he 
says, " in those branches taught in the common schools of the 
country." As soon, therefore, as he had acquired his trade, he 
diligently set to work to obtain the means whereby to improve 
his mind, by going to school. Entering the Methodist ministry 
in 1826, he was for ten years a faithful and hard-Avorked itine- 
rant preacher, availing himself, meanwhile, of every opportu- 
nity of study and improving his defective education, especially 
in the English branches. In 1832, he was chosen by the Holston 
Annual Conference as a delegate to the General Conference of 
the Methodist Church held in Philadelphia ; and, during the 
same year, travelled a circuit in South Carolina, having ap- 
pointments in the districts of Pickens and Anderson, and also 
in Franklin County, Georgia. Nullification was then raging 
in South Carolina, and men of all professions took sides, either 
in favor of the General Government, or of the South Carolina 
Ordinance of Disunion. Anderson District, which was one of 
Mr. Brownlow's appointments, was the residence of the arch- 
nullifier, John C. Calhoun, and the itinerant parson, living in 
such an atmosphere of excitement, and ever prone to give fear- 
less expression to his own political convictions, soon found 
himself drawn conspicuously into the controversy. His stout 
defence of the Federal Government brought down upon him a 
storm of opposition so fierce that he felt obliged, in vindication 
of his position, to publish a pamphlet, in which he fully defined 
his principles on that particular question. 

About the same time, also, he became engaged in a contro- 
versy with a clergyman of another denomination relative to the 
position of the Methodists with regard to slavery, and published 
in a pamphlet the following prophetic extract, expressing the 
sentiments he has ever since maintained : — " I have paid some 



EEV. WILLIAM GANNAWAY BEOWNLOW. 353 

attontion to this .subject (slavery), young as I am, because it is, 
one day or other, to shake this Government to its very founda- 
tion. 1 expect to live to see that day, and not to be an old mail 
at that. The tariff question now threatens the overthrow of 
the Government ; but the slavery question is one to be dreaded. 
"\Vhile I shall advocate the owning of 'men, women, and chil- 
dren,' as you say our ' Discipline' styles slaves, I shall, if I am 
living when the battle comes, stand by my Government and the 
Union formed by our fathers, as Mr. Wesley stood by the 
British Government, of which he was a loyal subject." Nobly 
has Air. Brownlow's subsequent career performed this promise 
of his earlier years ! 

]\[r. BroAvnlow began his political career in Tennessee, in 
lb'26, by espousing, as he says, "the cause of John Quincy 
Adams as against Andrew Jackson. The latter I regard as 
having been a true patriot and a sincere lover of his country. 
The former I admired because he was a leaimed statesman, of 
pure moral and private character, and because I regarded him 
as a Federalist^ representing my political opinions. I have all 
ni}' life long been a Federal Whig of the Washington and Alex- 
ander Hamilton school. I am the advocate of a concentrated 
Federal Government^ or of a strong central Government^ able to 
maintain its dignity, to assert its authority, and to crush out 
any rebellion that may be inaugurated. I have never been a 
sectional, but at all times a national man, supporting men for the 
presidency and vice-presidency witliout any regard on which 
side of Mason and Dixon's Line they were born, or resided at 
the time of their nomination. In a word, I am, as I have 
ever been, an ardent Whig^ and Clay and Webster have ever 
been my standards of political orthodoxy. With the breaking 
up of old parties, I have merged every thing into the great 

question of the ' Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement 
23 



Sol MEN OF OUR DAY. 

of tlie laws.' Hence, I am an Uncbndiiional Union man, and 
advocate the preservation of the Union at the expense of all 
other considerations." 

About 1837, he became the editor of the '■'■Kiioxville (Tenn.) 
Whiy^^^ a political newspaper which obtained a larger circula- 
tion than any other similar paper in the State, and even larger 
than all the papers in East Tennessee together. From the 
vigorous and defiant style of his articles in this sheet, as well 
as of his public speeches, he obtained a national reputation 
under the sobriquet of the " Fighting Parson." He was also 
actively engaged in all the religious and political controversies 
of the day, and, amid these varied labors, found time to write 
several books, the principal of "which is entitled '' The Iron 
Wheel Examined, and the False Spokes Extracted," being a 
vindication of the Methodist Church against the attacks of Rev. 
J. R, Graves, of Nashville. It was published by the Southern 
Methodist Book Concern, at the earnest solicitation of leading 
members of the denomination, and " is," to use his own words, 
" a work of great severity, but was written in reply to one of 
still greater severity," 

In September, 1858, Parson Brownlow held a public debate 
at Philadelphia, with Rev, Abram Payne, of New York, in 
which he defended the institution of Slavery as it existed in 
the South. This discussion w'as afterward published in Phila- 
delphia under the title of " Ought American Slavery to be 
Perpetuated," 

From the beginning of the Secession movement in 1860, 
Brownlow, as was to be expected from his life-long sentiments, 
boldly advocated, in his paper, unconditional adherence to the 
Union, for the reason, among others, that it was the best safe- 
guard to southern institutions. This course subjected him to 
much obloquy and persecution after the secession of Tennessee, 



REV. Y\'ILLIAM GANNAWAY BROWNLOW. 855 

nnd on the 24th of October, 1S61, he piil)lished the last number 
o: the Whig issued under the Slaveocratic Grovernmcnt. In this 
closing number, he announced his intention not to re-issue his 
journal until after the State had .been cleared of rebels; and he 
also expressed his expectation of a hurried removal and lengthy 
imprisonment at their hands. Avowing his determination 
never to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy, he 
asserted that he would " submit to imprisonment for life, or die 
at the end of a rope," before he would make any humiliating 
concession to any power on earth. " I shall go to jail," said 
he, "as John Rogers went to the stake — for my principles. 
I shall go, because I have failed to recognize the hand of Grod 
in the breaking up of the American Government, and the 
inauguration of the most wicked, cruel, unnatural, and un- 
called-for war ever recorded in history. * "•■^ I am proud of 
my position and of my principles, and shall leave them to my 
children as a legacy far more valuable than a princeh' fortune, 
had I the latter to bestow." 

Remaining, for awhile, unmolested at Knoxville, he was 
finally taken away by his friends, and remained in concealment 
for some time in the mountains of Tennessee, until he Avas in- 
duced, by the offer of a safe escort out of the State to the 
North, to appear at the rebel military headquarters at Knox- 
ville. Upon his arrival there, December 6th, 1861, he was 
arrested, on a civil process, for treason, and thrown into jail. 
After a month's confinement, he was released, only to be im- 
mediately re-arrested by military authority, and was kept under 
guard in his own house, expecting death, and suffering from 
severe illness, till March 3d, 1862. He was then sent, under 
escort, toward the Union lines at Nashville, -which he finally 
entered on the loth, having been detained ten days by the 
guerrilla force of Colonel Morgan. Subsequently he made an 



356 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

exteDsive and successful tour of the Northern States, addressing 
large audiences in all the principal cities, and wrote an auto- 
biographical work, entitled, "Sketches of the Rise, Progress, 
and Decline of Secession, with a Narrative of Personal Adven- 
ture among the Rebels," which was published in Philadelphia. 
This work, popularly known as " Parson Brownlow's Book," 
had an extensive sale. During the month of November, 1862, 
Mr. Brownlow, having been joined by his family, who had also 
been expelled from Knoxville, took up his residence at Cincin- 
nati, Ohio, for a time. After the battle of Murfreeshoro, he 
removed, with his family, to Nashville, Tennessee, there to 
await the earliest opportunity of returning to Knoxville, and 
re-establishing Tiie Whig, for which purpose he had received 
considerable ''material aid" during his tour in the Northern 
States. In September, 1863, the capture of that city aJtforded 
him the long-desired chance to return to his old home, and 
before leaving Nashville, he, on the 7th of September, 1863, 
issued his prospectus for the Knoxville Whig, under the new and 
euphonious title of '■^ Brownlow' s Knoxville Whig and Rehel Ven- 
tilalory Its first number was announced to be issued on the 
anniversary of the day when his " paper was crushed out by 
the God-forsaken mob at Knoxville, called the Confederate 
authorities," and his purpose was, as he said, " to commence 
with the rebellion where the traitors had forced him to leave 
off." He promised, in the editorial conduct of the paper, to 
'•forget Whigs, Democrats, Know Nothings, and Republicans, 
and remember only the Government and the preservation of 
the Federal Union— as richly worth all the sacrifices ot blood 
and treasure their preservation may cost — even to the exter- 
mination of the present race of men, and the consumption of 
all the means of the present age." 

He has conducted his paper, from that time to the present, 



REV. WILLIAM GANNAWAY BROWNLOW. 357 

with a fearlessness and power of denunciation, which lias rnada 
it a terror to the rebels of Tennessee; and their hatred of him 
has manifested itself by constant acts of malignity. lie has, 
driven in part by his more fully developed convictions, and in 
part by the irresistible logic of events, come more and more 
fully upon the Eepublican platform, till to-day he is as thorough 
a liadical as any man in the West, advocating impartial suffrage, 
the Congressional theory of reconstruction, and the impeach- 
ment of Andrew Johnson, for whom he entertains no great 
respect. 

In 1865, when Tennessee returned to the Union, Mr, Brown- 
low was elected, by an overwhelming majority. Governor of 
Tennessee, and in 1867, re-elected to the same high office. He 
has brought to his duties his unimpeachable honesty, his fear- 
less and unflinching integrity, and his remarkable executive 
ability, and has been one of the best governors the State has 
ever had. The legislature of 1867, elected him to the United 
States Senate, for the term commencing March 4th, 1869. 

Of himself, Parson Brownlow says (in 1862): "I have been 
a laboring man all my life long, and have acted upon the Scrip- 
tural maxim of eating my bread in the sweat of my brow. 
Though a Southern man in feeling and jprinciple, I do not think 
it degrading to a man to labor, as do most Southern disunionists. 
Whether East or West, North or South, I recognize the dignity 
of labor^ and look forward to a day, not very h^r distant, when 
educated labor will be the salvation of this vast country ! * '-^ * 
I am known throughout the length and breadth of the land as 
the ' Fighting Parson,' while I may say, without incurring 
the charge of egotism, that no man is more peaceable, us my ' 
neighbors will testify. Always poor, and always oppressed 
with security debts, few men in my section and of my limited 
means have given away more in the course of each year to 



358 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

charitable objects. I have never been arraigned in the church 
for immorality. I never played a card. I never was a pro- 
fane swearer. I never drank a dram of liquor, until within a 
few years, when it was taken as a medicine. I never had a cigar 
or a chew of tobacco in my mouth. I never was in attendance 
at a theatre. I never attended a horse-race, and never witnessed 
their running save on the fair grounds of my own county. I 
never courted but one woman ; and her I married. 

" I am about six feet high, and have weighed as high as one 
hundred and seventy-five pounds, — have had as fine a constitu- 
tion as any man need desire. I have very few grey hairs in my 
head, and although rather hard-favored than otherwise. I will 
pass for a man of forty years. I have had as strong a voice as 
any man in East Tennessee, where I have resided for the last 
thirty j^ears, and have a family of seven children." 

We may add that Mr. Brownlow's earnestness of convictions, 
and fearlessness in their avowal, is equalled only by the intense- 
ness of the language which he employs to express his sentiments. 
There is nothing " mealy-nioutbed" about him — men and things 
are called by their right names — and iowlIs are applied with a 
"squareness" and force which is peculiarly the "Parson's own." 



GOVERNOR RICHARD J. OGLESBY. 




^ICHAED JAMES OGLESBY, Governor of tlie State of 
Illinois, was born in Oldham county, Kentucky, on tlio 
25th of Jul}^, 1824. In consequence of the death of 
both of his parents, when he was l:)ut eight years old, his 
early education was so much neglected that he attended school 
for a year only, before he was twelve years of age, and for 
about three months afterward. In the spring of the year 1836, 
he removed to Decatur, Illinois ; and, during 1838, resided in 
Terre Haute, Indiana, but soon returned to Illinois, >vhere he 
remained until the fall of 1840. Then, returning to Oldham 
county, Kentucky, he acquired the carpenter's trade ; in the 
spring of 1842 went again to Illinois, and there worked at his 
trade, and at farming, for two years, and in the spring of 1814, 
commenced the study of law with Judge Silas W. Robins, at 
Springfield, Illinois. In the fall of 1845, he was licensed as an 
attorney, and commenced practice in Sulli ^an, Moultrie county, 
Illinois — ^but the Mexican war now broke out, and young 
Oglesby threw himself with eagerness into the excitement of 
the hour. Volunteering at Decatur, in the spring of 1846, he 
was largely instrumental in raising company "C," of the 4th 
Illinois volunteer regiment, commanded by Colonel B. D. 
Baker. Elected to a first lieutenancy, he served a twelve- 
month, participating in the siege of Vera Cruz, and command- 
ing his company at the battle of Cerro Gordo, where it lost 

359 



360 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

twelve in killed and -wounded out of forty-one engaged. Re- 
turning to Decatur, he resumed his profession, practicing 
during the years 184:7 and 1848, and during the winter of 
'48-9 attending lectures at the Louisville law school, from 
which institution he received a diploma. In April, 1850, he 
crossed the plains, from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, 
California, driving a six mule team, and remained in the 
" Land of gold," engaged in mining, until the fall of 1851, when 
he returned to Decatur, resumed the practice of his profession, 
and was elected on the Whig ticket in the year 1852. 

In the spring of 1856, he made an extended tour through 
Europe, Egypt and the Holy Land, returning to his home at 
Decatur, after an absence of twenty months. In 1858 he wa3 
nominated as the Republican candidate for Congress, in the 
seventh Congressional district, but was defeated by Hon. James 
C. Robinson, by one thousand nine hundred majority, in a 
district which had formerly given from four to five thousand 
Democratic majority. In 1860, he was elected State Senator, 
on the Republican ticket, in a strong Democratic district, thus 
Bccuring the election of the Hon. Lyman Trumbull to the 
United States Senate. But when the South lighted the fires 
of civil war, Mr. Oglesby resigned his seat in the Senate and 
on the 25th of April, 1861, received a commission as colonel 
of the 8th Illinois volunteer infantry. Stationed, with his regi- 
ment, at Cairo, Illinois, until July, 1861, he was then a55signed 
to the command of the troops at Bird's Point, Missouri, remain- 
ing there six months in command of two brigades of.infantry ; 
and also, for a portion of the time, of the force at Cairo. He 
commanded a force of four thousand men sent out from Bird's 
Point to Bloomfield, Missouri, in co-operation with General 
Grant's movement against the rebel forces at Belmont ; and, on 
the 1st of February, 1862, was relieved from the command at 



RICIIAED JAMES OGLESBY. 361 

Bird's Point and assigned to that of the first brigade of the 
first division of the army of West Tennessee, then commanded 
by Brigadier-General Grant. Oglesby's brigade, consisting of 
bis own (the 8th) regiment, the 18th, 29th, 30tb, and 31st, 
Illinois volunteers, led the advance of the army, being the first 
to enter Fort Henry ; — was foremost during all the skirmishing 
on the marcli to Fort Douelson ; was on the rigbt at the invest- 
ment of that place, and, on the 12th, 13tli and 14th of February, 
was continually under fire. On tlie morning of the 15th, this 
brigade was furiously attacked by the rebels, and for four hours 
bore the brunt of the contest, in which it lost one fifth of its 
numbers. He commanded a brigade consisting of tbe 9tb and 
12th Illinois volunteers, the 22d and 81st Ohio, and the 14th 
Missouri volunteers — until the evacuation of Corinth, but did 
not participate in the battle of Shiloh. Afterwards he com- 
manded the second division of the army of the Tennessee, 
during a two month's absence of Brigadier-General Davis, and 
upon the return of that officer, re-assumed the command of hia 
brigade, which he led through the terrible battle of Corinth, 
October 3d and 4th, 1862, keeping (with Hackleman's brigade of 
the same division) the entire rebel army at bay, from 3 r. M. 
until the close of the fight, during which Hackleman was 
killed and Oglesby was carried from the field, apparently in 
a dying condition, from a wound caused by a ball which entered 
the left lung, and which has never since been removed. His 
conspicuous gallantry on this occasion secured for him the com- 
pliment oi" promotion as major-general over the brigadier- 
general commanding the division; and by the 1st of April, 
1863, having so far recovered as to be able to report for duty, 
he was giveii the command of the left wing of the 16th army 
corps, comprising two divisions of infantry and one of cavalry, 
in a district which embraced western Tennessee and northern 



362 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

Mississippi, with the exception of a strip along the Mississippi 
river. 

The wound he had received, however, continued to aflfect him 
so seriously that, in the latter part of June, 1863, he tendered 
his resignation, which General Grant refused to accept, but 
gave him, instead, a six month's leave of absence. On the 24th 
of May, 1864, his resignation was accepted, and, on the following 
day, he was nominated by the Union Convention of the State of 
Illinois, as candidate for the governorship, to which, on the 8tli 
of November, 1864, he was elected over James C. Eobinson 
(his former competitor for Congress), by thirty-two thousand 
nicijority, the largest majority which had ever been given in 
that State, for that or any other office. On the 16th day of 
January, 1865, he was inaugurated for a term of four years and 
entered vigorously upon the duties of the office which he now 
so honorably and successfully fills. On the 30th of May, 1865, 
he assisted at the opening of the great fair for the aid of the 
soldiers, at Chicago, delivering an address which was enthusi- 
astically received, especially by the returned soldiers, who re- 
cognized him not only as their governor, but as a fellow-soldier, 
and a hero, who had suffi3red, fought, and been wounded in 
defence of the same glorious cause for which they had them- 
selves battled. 

The State of Illinois fortunately found in Eichard J. Oglesby 
a governor whose patriotism, energy, and integrity, fitly con- 
tinued and completed the splendid official record, so honorably 
inaugurated by his predecessor. Yates and Oglesby, to whose 
leadership the interests of the State were committed during the 
most critical period of its own, as well as the national life, 
have proved themselves eminently worthy of the highest en- 
comiums which can be bestowed upon faithful public servants. 



HON. GALUSHA A. GROW. 




sALUSHA A. GEOW is a native of Ashford (now East- 
ford), Windham county, Connecticut, where he was born, 
<;^ ^^ August 31st, 1824. At the tender age of three years he 
^ lost his father, who died, leaving six children, the eldest 
of Avhom was but fourteen years old, and the youngest an infant, 
and a property, the proceeds of which were barely sufficient to 
pay its debts. Gralusha was sent to live with his grandfather, 
Captain Samuel Eobbins, of Voluntown, in the eastern part of 
the county, with whom he remained until he was ten years old, 
performing the work common to farmers' boys of his age, viz. : 
driving oxen to plough, milking, "riding horse" to furrow out 
corn, " doing chores," etc. — and attending district school in the 
winters. About that time his mother -removed to Pennsylvania, 
where she purchased a farm in Susquehanna county, on the 
Tuckahaunock creek, at a place called Glenwood, where she 
resided until her death, in 1864 ; and which is still the home of 
her four sons, of whom all, except Galusha and his oldest 
brother, are married. The farm which this good matron pur- 
chased was paid for partly at that time, and partly in annual 
payments ; and it required the exercise of much thrift on her 
part, as well as the united industry of all her children, to make, 
as the saying is, " both ends meet." She openeda small country 

store, which one of her boys tended, while two others worked 

3G3 



364 MEX OF OUK DAY. 

the farm and engaged in lumbering. 5^alusha, being the 
youngest boy, assisted his brother in the store and accompanied 
him, in the spring seasons, in rafting lumber down the Susque- 
hanna river. In 1838, however, he commenced a course of 
study, at the Hossford Academy, preparatory to a collegiate 
education ; and, in 18-iO, entered as freshman at Amherst College, 
Massachusetts, ^rom this excellent institution, although slen- 
derly fitted by his scanty preparatory studies to cope with hia 
well drilled New England classmates — he graduated in 1844, 
with high honors in his class, and with the reputation of being 
a ready debater and a fine extemporaneous speaker. As frequently 
happens, however, the assiduity with which he had applied him- 
self to his studies, had seriously impaired his health ; yet, 
nothing daunted, he plunged earnest4y into the study of law ; 
was admitted to the bar of Susquehanna county, in the fall of 
1847, and continued to practice successfully until the spring of 
1850, when broken health compelled him to leave the office for 
outdoor and more invigorating pursuits. The following year, 
therefore, was spent in surveying, farming, peeling bark for 
tanning use, etc. • and his enfeebled frame began to show encour- 
aging results of such labors. 

In the fall of 1850, he received and declined a unanimou3 
nomination for a seat in the State Legislature, tendered by the 
Democratic County Convention. But, a few months later, while 
engaged, with a gang of men, in rebuilding a bridge over the 
Tuckahannock, he W'as informed that he had been nominated 
for Congress. The campaign into which he now entered was a 
most spirited one — the Democratic party in his district being 
divided on the TVilmot proviso, the breach becoming more fally 
developed after the passage of the compromise measures of 1850. 
One wing of the party re-nominated Mr. Wilmot, while the 
other selected James Lowrey, Esq., of Tioga county, each candi- 



HON. GALU3IIA A. GROW. 305 

date canvassing the district iu person, and their respective friends 
becoming warmly enlisted. The Whig candidate was John C. 
Adams, a lawyer of Bradford county. The district, which then 
comprised Susquehanna, Bradford, and Tioga counties, usually 
gave a Democratic inajority of about two thousand five hundred. 
Eight days bofore the election, Wilraot and Lowry agreed, after 
consultation wdth respective friends, to withdraw from the con- 
test, if the Democrats of the district would re-assemble and 
nominate Grow, who was then unknown in Tioga county, but 
had taken a very active part in his own county, in the presiden- 
tial elections of 1844: and 1848, had been a warm supporter of 
Wilmot, and was his law partner for two years. 

The conference composed of both sets of conferees met at 
Kelsonboro, Tioga county, the week before the election, and all 
agreed on Grow as a candidate. He was elected by twelve 
hundred and sixty -four majority, and took his seat in December, 
1851, the youngest member of Congress. 

He continued to represent the district for twelve consecutive 
years, being elected by majorities ranging from eight thousand 
to fourteen thousand, and once by the unanimous vote of the 
district, so that he was often styled " Great Majority Grow." 

With the exception of Wilmot, who was elected six years, no 
representative had ever been elected in the district to exceed 
four years. 

A new Congressional apportionment of the State, in 1861, 
united Susquehanna county Avith Luzerne county, and made 
the district Democratic, by which he was defeated in the election 
of 1862 ; since which time he has been engaged in lumbering 
and his old pursuit of surveying, trying to regain health, which 
had become very feeble when he left Washington in the spring 
of 1863. 

In 1855 V.e spent six months in Europe, and most of the 



366 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

summer of 1857 in the -westerii territories. He was one of 
the victims of the National Hotel poisoning, in the winter and 
spring of 1857. 

In Congress, the most important Committees on which he 
served, were the Committees on Indian Affairs, Agriculture, and 
Territories. For six years he was on the Committee on Terri- 
tories, and four years its chairman ; embracing all the time of the 
Kansas troubles ; and so devoted was he to the interest and affairs 
of Kansas, that his fellow members often designated him (good- 
naturedly), the member from Kansas. 

His twelve years of service extended through a most impor- 
tant period of the Eepublic ; the repeal of Missouri compromise, 
election of Banks speaker, the Kansas troubles, Lecompton 
bill, the Homestead bill, the Pacific railroad, etc., as well as the 
Fremont and Lincoln campaigns, etc. 

Mr. Grow's maiden speech in Congress was made on the 
" Homestead bill,"' a measure which he continued to press at 
every Congress until its final passage as a law in 1861. In- 
deed, the persistency of his efforts for its success, gained for him 
the ai^TpTO'pvhte soubriquet of "The Father of the Homestead bill." 
In the speech to which we allude, delivered March 30th, 1852, 
Mr. Grow remarks : " Most of the evils that afflict society have 
had their origin in violence and wrong, enacted into law by the 
experience of the past, and retained by the prejudices of the 
present." * * * " The struggle between capital and labor 
is an unequal one at best. It is a struggle between the bones and 
sinews of men and dollars and cents; and in that struggle it 
needs no prophet's pen to foretell the issue. And in that strug- 
gle, is it for this Government to stretch forth its arm to aid the 
strong against the weak ? Shall it continue, by its legislation, 
to elevate and enrich idleness on the weal and the Avoe of indus- 
try ?" * ^ * K While the public lands uro exposed to indis- 



HON. GALUSHA A. GROW. 367 

t 

criminate sale, as tliej have been since the organization of the 
Government, it opens the door to the wildest system of land 
monopoly — one of the direst, deadliest curses that ever paralyzed 
the energies of a nation or palsied the arm of industry. It 
needs no lengthy dissertation to portray its evils. Its history in 
the Old World is written in sighs and tears." * * * " If 
you would raise fallen man from his degradation, and elevate 
the servile from his groveling pursuits to the rights and dignity 
of men, you must first place within his reach the means for 
supplying his pressing physical wants, so that religion m.ay 
exert its influence on the soul, and soothe the weary pilgrim in 
his pathway to the tomb." * * * " If you would lead the 
erring back from the paths of vice and crime to virtue and 
honor, give him a home — give him a hearthstone, and he will 
surround it with household gods. If you would make men 
wiser and better, relieve your almshouses, close the doors of 
your penitentiaries, and break in pieces your gallows, purify the 
influences of the domestic fireside. For that is the school in 
which 'human character is formed, and there its destiny is shaped; 
there the soul receives its first impression and man his first les- 
son, and they go with him for weal or for woe through life. 
For purifying the sentiments, elevating the thoughts, and devel- 
oping the noblest impulses of man's nature, the influences of a 
moral fireside and agricultural life are the nobleat and the best. 
In the obscurity of the cottage, far removed from the seductive 
influences of rank and affluence, are nourished the virtues that 
counteract the decay of human institutions, the courage that 
defends the national independence, and the industry that sup- 
ports all classes of the State." 

In all the exciting discussion of public affairs, since 1850, Mr. 
Grow has taken an active and influential part, especially in those 
relating to the extension or perpetuity of slavery. 



868 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

Mr. Grow, iJthougli educated a Democrat, and his family con- 
nections all belonging to that party, (but now being Eepubli- 
can,) has always been thoroughly anti-sla.very in his convictions 
and his utterances, asserting boldly that " slavery, wherever it 
goes, bears a sirocco in front and leaves a desert behind." He 
resisted with all his energies the repeal of the Missouri compro- 
mise, and, from the date of its consummation, he wholly severed 
his connection Avith the Democratic party. When, upon the 
jfloors of Congress, southern bullies adopted the bludgeon and 
revolver as their logic, he mot their insolence with a muscular 
argument, which proved the sincerity of his declaration to Keitt, 
the South Carolinian, that " no nigger-driver could crack his 
whip over him." And soon after the infamous assault upon 
Senator Sumner by this same Keitt and his friends, Mr. Grow 
took occasion, in a speech on the admission of Kansas, to assert 
that " tyranny and wrong rule with brute force one of the ter- 
ritories of the Union, and violence reigns in the capital of the 
Eepublic. In the one, mob-law silences with the revolver the 
voice of man pleading for the inalienable rights of man ; in the 
other, tlie sacred guarantees of the Constitution are violated, 
and reason and free speech are supplanted by the bludgeon ; 
and, in the Council Chamber of the nation, men stand up to vin- 
dicate and justify both. Well may the patriot tremble for the 
future of his country when he looks upon this picture and then 
upon that !" 

In 1859, he was mainly instrumental in defeating tlie attempt 
in the Senate to increase the rates of postage from three to five 
and ten cents on letters and double the old rates on printed 
matter. 

On the -ith of July, 1861, Mr. Grow was elected Speaker of 
the House of Eepresentatives, an office which he held during 
the first two years of the war, receiving, at the close of his term, 



HOX. GALUSHA GROW. 369 

the first unanimous vote of tliauks "vvbicli bad been given by 
tbat body to any speaker, in many years. The eloquent and 
patriotic words which he uttered upon taking the chair of the 
House, at a time when the rebel flag of the new Confederacy 
was flaunting in the very sight of Washington, were made 
good by the alacrity with which — when the mob held possession 
of Baltimore, severing the connection with the North, — he 
seized a musket, and as a member of Clay's brigade, stood " on 
watch and ward," until the arrival of the New York seventh 
and other troops, via Annapolis, brought safety to the capital. 
He was drafted under the first draft ; and, although exempted 
])y the board of examination, as unfit for military duty, by 
reason of his health, he still furnished a substitute who served 
through the war. 

Mr. Grow's public career, as will be seen, has been promi- 
nently marked by his persistent advocacy of free homesteads, 
fi'ee territory, human freedom, cheap postage, and, indeed, every 
measure by which the people were to be made wiser, purer, or 
happier. It is a record of which every public man may well 
be proud ; a record peculiarly befitting one who, brought up a 
farmer's boy, has never forgotten or hesitated to acknowledge 
the interests which the working-men of the Eepublic have 
upon his services. Though young in years, and far from 
robust in health ; and with no adventitious aid from wealth 
or family influence, he has already achieved a national repu- 
tation. 

His long public career as a politician, has been marked by a 
straightforwardness and fidelity which excite the admiration of 
the people. It has been marred by no wavering, no eccentrici- 
ties, no lapses from the j^ath of principle, but he has carried the 

flag of the party and the country, undismayed, through battle, 
24 



370 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

through defeat, and victory, relying upon the immutability and 
truth of the cause, with 

'•Not a star tarnished, not a stripe polluted." 

Vigorous outdoor exercise during the past four years, has 
tended greatly to re-establish his health, and may we sincerely 
hope, fit him for a still more extended career of public influence 
and usefulness. 



HON. EDWIN D. MORGAN, 

UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM NEW YORK. 




HE ability which is developed in an active business life, 
in great commercial transactions, and the rapid changes 
^ and fluctuations of trade and finance, have proved in 
practice as valuable in the management of the public 
affairs of the State and nation, as that which comes from the 
exclusive study of law. The accomplished merchant, banker, 
or financier, is, indeed, more likely to take a plain, common- 
sense view of the questions of state, and to be unembarrassed 
by the quibbles, chicanery and superfine distinctions and defi- 
nitions of the lawyer, than the man who has been trained in the 
school of precedents, authorities, and legal hair-splitting. To 
this class of business-men. Senator Morgan belongs, and the 
signal services he has rendered to the State and nation, are due,, 
in perhaps equal measures, to the eminently practical and 
sensible constitution of his mind, and to the thoroughness and 
carefulness of his business training. 

Edwin Dennisox Morgan was born in Washington, Berk- 
shire county, Massachussetts, February 8th, 1811. In early 
childhood, he developed a fondness for mathematics, and an 
aptitude for trade, which indicated very plainly his future 
vocation. At the tender age of eleven years, he became clerk 
to a grocer in Hartford, Connecticut, and was so faithful and 

attentive to his employer's interests, and so courteous as a sales- 

371 



372 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

man, tLat, in 1831, when he was but twenty years of age, he waa 
oflered a partnership in the store, which he accepted. These 
nine or ten years of boyhood and youth had not been confined 
merely to the drudgery of the grocery ; the hours of leisure had 
been diligently employed in the culture of his mind, and the 
next year he was chosen a member of the city council of Hart- 
ford, at a time when it was composed of intelligent and able men. 

The little city of Hartford did not long furnish a sufliciently 
wide sphere of action for the aspiring young grocer ; so, in 
1836, he removed to New York city, and engaged in mercantile 
pursuits with his brother, and the firm grew and prospered, till 
in a few years it attained a high rank among the safest and 
most extensive commercial houses of the metropolis, its trans- 
actions reaching to all parts of the United States and Europe. 
In 1849, Mr. Morgan was chosen an alderman of New York, 
and the same year elected to the State Senate, and served there 
for two terms (four years). In 1855, he was appointed com- 
missioner of emigration, and held the ofl&ce until 1858. His 
early political affiliations were with the "Whigs, though he was 
strongly opposed to slavery. When the Republican party was 
formed, he gave it his adhesion, as representing his views, and 
at the National Republican Convention, in Pittsburgh, in 1856, 
was one of its vice-presidents, and from that time till 1864, 
chairman of the National Republican Committee. 

In 1858, Mr. Morgan was nominated by the Republicans as 
their candidate for Governor of the State of New York, and 
elected by a handsome majority. His administration was one 
of the ablest which the State had had for years, and com- 
manded such general approval, that he was nominated for a 
second term without opposition in his party, in 1860, and 
elected by a very heavy majority. This second term was one 
of immense labor, care, and responsibility to the governor He 



HON. EDWIN D. MORGAN. 373 

promptly responded to the President's call of April 15tli, 1861, 
and regiment after regiment went forward to "Washington, and 
other points on the border, and among them, the gallant New 
York seventh, at whose coming loyal citizens of Washington, 
for the first time, folt safe; the twelfth and seventy-first; the fight- 
ing sixty-ninth (Irish) ; and the stately seventy-ninth (Scotch); 
the Brooklyn fourteenth, composed, as some writers said, of 
boys who looked as if they ought to be in school, but who 
fought with all the steadiness of veterans; the twenty-sixth, a 
Utica regiment of great gallantry ; and others of perhaps equal 
merit, all of whom participated in the bloody field of Bull Run. 
The militia could only be required to serve out of the State for 
three months at a time, and Governor Morgan had no sooner 
dispatched these to the seat of war, than he commenced organiz- 
ing, as rapidly as possible, volunteer regiments to serve for 
three years, or the war. 

President Lincoln had commissioned him, in the spring of 
1S61, major general of volunteers, in order to facilitate his 
labors in raising and organizing regiments. He held this rank 
till the close of his term of office as governor, (Januarj^, 1863,) 
but decliued all compensation. No officer under his command 
was, however, more constantly and laboriously engaged in his 
duties, than the governor. Yet with his systematic business 
habit?, the ability acquired by long practice to manage and 
control great enterprises, he was never flurried, but maintained 
constantly the most perfect order, and quietly performed his 
duties, as they required his attention. 

In the twenty months of his administration, during the war, 
he raised, organized, and sent forward from his State, two 
hundred and twenty-three thousand troops. In the guberna- 
torial election of 1862, Governor Morgan was not a candidate, 
having withdrawn from the canvass to give place to the gallant 



37-i MEN OF OUR DAY. 

soldier, General James S. Wadsworth, who, liowever, was not 
elected, the Democracy prevailing by the popular cry of "a 
more active prosecution of the war," in electing a man who 
was wholly opposed to the war. The Legislature was, however, 
Kepublican, and at its session, Governor Morgan was elected 
United States Senator, for the term ending March -ith, 1869. 

His course in the Senate has been uniformly dignified and 
honorable to the State which he represents. He seldom speaks ; 
never, unless on important questions, and is then always listened 
to with attention. He has during his whole Senatorial career, 
held an important position on the Committees on Commerce, 
Manufacturing, the "Pacific Eailroad, Military Affairs, Finance, 
and Mines, and Mining, and on all these great national interests 
has rendered material and permanent service to the country. 
On the retirement of Secretary Fessenden from the office of 
Secretary of the Treasury, President Lincoln offered Senator 
Morgan the position, but he declined it, much to the regret of 
the Presi-^ent. 



HON. CHARLES SUMNER. 

UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS. 




'HARLES SUMNER was born in Boston, Massachusetts, 
on the 6th of February, 1811. His father, Char lea 
Pinckney Sumner, a graduate of Harvard College, a 
lawyer by profession, and for fourteen years, during the 
latter part of his life, sheriff of Suffolk county, was a gentle- 
man of eminent probity, literary taste and ability, of whom it 
has been said that " the happiness of mankind was his control- 
ling passion." These graces of disposition, as well as his noble 
and sympathetic character were inherited by his son ; who, at 
an early age, manifested uncommon powers of intellect and an 
intense thirst for knowledge. He prepared for college at the 
Boston Latin school, where he manifested a peculiar fondness 
for the classics and for the study of history ; winning at the close 
of his course, the prizes for English composition and Latin 
poetry, besides the Franklin medal. In 1830, Mr. Sumner 
graduated from Harvard college, and in the following year 
entered the law school at Cambridge, where he enjoyed the 
friendship as well as the teachings of that eminent jurist, Judge 
Story ; pursuing his studies with an indomitable energy and 
assiduity. "He never relied upon text-books," we are told, 
" but sought original sources, read all authorities and references, 
and made himself familiar with books of the common law, from 

the year-books, in uncouth Norman, down to the latest reports. 

375 



376 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

It was said that he could go iuto the law-library, of which he 
was the librarian, and find, in the dark, any volume, if in its 
I-)roper place." AVhile a student of law, he became an esteemed 
contributor to the " American Jurist," a quarterly journal of 
extensive celebrity and circulation among the profession, of 
Avhicli he soon assumed the editorial charge. In 183-1, he was 
admitted to the bar at "Worcester, and commenced practice in 
his native city. Being, soon after, appointed reporter to the 
Circuit Court, he published three volumes, known as " Sumner's 
Eeports ;" and for three successive winters after his admission 
to the bar, lectured to the students of the Cambridge law 
school, in the absence of Professors Greenleaf and Story; 
having, also, for some time, the sole charge of the Dane school. 
These and other labors were performed in such a manner as to 
rapidly advance him to the front rank of his profession, and to 
attract to aim the admiration of Chancellor Kent, Judge Story, 
and other distinguished lawyers. In 1833, he edited, with 
a judiciousness and scope of learning which surprised even the 
highest legal authorities, Andrew Dunlap's " Treatise on ike 
practice of the Courts of Admiralty in civil causes of maritime 
jurisdiction^'' — his valuable comments forming an appendix 
which contained as much matter as the original work. In 
1837, Mr. Sumner set sail for Europe, with the highest reputa- 
tion as a young lawyer of exalted talent, brilliant genius, and 
commanding eloquence, and bearing with him valuable letters of 
introduction from our highest legal dignitaries to their friends of 
the EngHsh bar. " When he reached England, he was received 
with marked distinction by eminent statesmen, lawyers, and 
scholars. During his stay in England, which was nearly a 
year, he closely attended the debates in Parliament, and heard 
all the great speakers of the day, with many of whom he 
became intimately acquainted. His deportment was so gentle- 



HON". CHARLES SUMNER. 377 

manly, liis mind so vigorous and accoraplished, and his address 
so winning, that he became a favorite with many in the best 
circles of English society. The most flattering attentions were 
shown Mr, Sumner by distinguished members of the English 
bar and bench, and while attending the" courts at Westminster 
Hall, he was frequently invited by the judges to sit by their 
side at the trials. At the meeting of the British Scientific 
Association, he experienced the same flattering attentions. In 
town and country, he moved freely in circles of society, to 
which intelligence and refinement, wealth and worth, lend 
every charm and grace. Nor did the evidence of such respect 
and confidence pass away with his presence. Two years after hig 
return from England, The Quarterly Beview, alluding to his visit, 
stepped aside to say : He presents, in his own person, a deci- 
sive proof that an American gentleman, without any ofl&cial rank 
or wide-spread reputation, by mere dint of courtesy, candor, an 
entire absence of pretension, an appreciating spirit, and a culti- 
vated mind, may be received on a perfect footing of equality 
in the best circles — social, political, and intellectual ; which, be 
it observed, are hopelessly inaccessible to the itinerant note- 
taker, who never gets beyond the outskirts of the show-house." 
Eight years later yet, he received a compliment which, from 
an English bench, is of the rarest occurrence. On an insurance 
question, before the Court of Exchequer, one of the counsel 
having cited an American case. Baron Parke, the ablest of the 
English judges, asked him what book he quoted. He replied 
Sumner's Reports. Baron Rolfe said, " Is that the Mr. Sumner 
who was once in England?" On receiving a reply in the 
affirmative, Baron Parke observed, " We shall not consider it 
entitled to the less attention, because reported by a gentleman 
whom we all knew and respected." Not long ago, some of 
Mr Sumner's estimates of war expenses were quoted by Mr, 



378 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

Cobden, in debate, in the House of Commons. In Paris he 
was received with the same cordiality as in England, and was 
speedily admitted to a familiar intercourse with the highest 
intellectual classes. He attended the debates of the Chamber 
of Deputies, and the lectures of all the eminent professors in 
different departments, at the Sorbonne, at the College of 
France, and particularly in the law schools. He attended a 
whole term of the Eoyal Court at Paris, observing the forms 
of procedure ; received many kindnesses from the judges, and 
was allowed to peruse the papers in the cases. While residing 
in Paris, he became intimately acquainted with General Cass, 
the American minister, at whose request he wrote a masterly 
defence of the American claim to the northeastern boundary, 
which was received with much favor by our citizens, and re- 
published in the leading journals of the day. In Italy, Mr. 
Sumner devoted himself, with the greatest ardor, to the study 
of art and literature, and read many of the best works of that 
classic land, on history, politics, and poetry. In Germany, he 
was also received with that high regard which is justly paid 
to distinguished talent and transcendent genius. Here he 
formed an intimate acquaintance with those eminent jurists, 
Savigny, Thibaut, and Mittermaier. He was kindly received 
by Prince Metternich, and became acquainted with most of the 
professors at Heidelberg, and with many other individuals 
distinguished iu science and literature, as Humboldt, Ranke, 
Hitter, etc. 

With his mind thus enriched by travel, and by additional 
stores of varied knowledge, Mr. Sumner returned to his native 
land in 18-iO, and resumed the practice of his profession. His 
principal attention, however, was given to the leisurely study of 
the science and literature of law, rather than to its active prose- 
oution in the professional arena. In 18-i3, he again resumed the 



HON, CHARLES SUMNER. 379 

position of lecturer at tlic Cambridge law school, and in 1844-46, 
edited an edition of Vesey's Keports, in twenty volumes — a great 
enterprise, conceived and executed in the happiest spirit — which 
elicited from the Bdston Laio Reporter the truthful estimate of 
Mr. Sumner's abilities, that " in what may be called the litera- 
ture of the law — the curiosities of legal learning — he has no 
rival among us." 

On the 4th of July, 1845, Mr. Sumner delivered an oration 
before the municipal authorities and citizens of Boston on The 
True Grandeur of Nations^ an admirable production, advocating 
the doctrine of universal peace among nations. This oration, 
by its ennobling sentiments, its beautiful imagery, classic allu- 
sion and elegant diction, not only produced a profound impres- 
sion upon those who listened to it, and fully established his 
reputation as an orator, but led to prolonged controversy upon 
the subject of war in general and of the Mexican war in par- 
ticular. 

When the eminent Judge Story died, in 1845, Mr. Sumner 
was universally conceded to be the fittest person to succeed him 
in the professorship of the law school. Story himseit nacl fre- 
quently remarked, " I shall die content, so far as my professor- 
ship is concerned, if Charles Sumner is to succeed me ;" while 
Chancellor Kent declared the young man " the only person in 
the country competent "to wear the mantle of his departed 
friend." But Sumner had chosen to enter upon the arena of 
political life ; and, indeed, had already boldly planted there the 
banner, under whose folds he had elected to fight, viz. : the cause 
of human freedom and universal liberty. On the 4th of No- 
vember, 1845, when it was proposed to annex Texas to the 
Union as a slave State, he had delivered a thrillingly eloquent 
protest, at a public meeting in old Faneuil Hall, against such an 
extension of the slave power. Within the same venerable 



380 MEN" OF OUR DAY. 

walls, consecrated by so many memories of revolutionary patri- 
otism, he again, on the 23d of September, 1846, addressed the 
Whig State Convention on the Anti-slavery Duties of the Whig 
Party, and, not long after, published a letter of rebuke to Hon. 
Kobert C. Winthrop for his vote in favor of the war with Mex- 
ico. On the 17th of February, 1847, he delivered, before the 
Boston Mercantile Library Association, a brilliant lecture on 
White Slavery in the Barhary States, a production of rare schol- 
arship and research, possessing great interest to every philan- 
thropist and lover of liberty. At Springfield, September 29, 
1847, he made a powerful speech, before the Massachusetts Whig 
State Convention, on Political Action Against the Slave Power 
and the Extension of Slavery ; and, at a mass convention at Wor- 
cester, Massachusetts, on the 28th of June, 1848, he gave another 
of his eloquent and able speeches, For Union among Men of all 
Parties against the Slave Power and the Extension of Slavery, in 
which he forcibly characterized the movement of the day, as a 
revolution, " destined to end only with the overthrow" of the 
tyranny of the slave power of the United States. Mr. Sumner, 
meanwhile, had withdrawn from the Whig party, and had asso- 
ciated himself with the " Free-soil" party, who favored the claims 
of Mr. Yan Buren for the presidency in 1848. On the 3d of 
October, 1850, he delivered, before the Free-soil State Conven- 
tion, at Boston, a masterly and glowing speech on Our Recent 
Anti-slavery Duties, which was a most exalted triumph of gen- 
uine oratory, and produced the profoundest impression upon 
those who heard it. It bore with terrible severity upon the 
Fugitive Slave bill, then recently passed, and upon President 
Fillmore, who had signed it, of whom he said, " Other Presi- 
dents may be forgotten ; but the name signed to the Fugitive 
Slave bill can never be forgotten. There are depths of infamy, 
as there are heights of fame. I regret to say what I must ; but 



HON". CHARLES SUMNER. 381 

^i.at'h compels me. Better for him had he never been born 
Better far for his memory, and for the good name of his chil- 
dren, had he never been President." 

On the 24:th of April, 1851, Mr. Sumner was elected by a 
coalition of the Free-soilers and Democrats in the Massachusetts 
legislature, to occupy the seat in the United States Senate, pre- 
viously occupied by Daniel Webster, who had recently accepted 
a position in Mr. Fillmore's cabinet. He took his seat in the 
national council, fully and firmly pledged to " oppose all sec- 
tionalism^ whether it appear in unconstitutional efforts by the 
North to carry so great a boon as freedom into the Slave 
States, or in unconstitutional efforts by the South, aided by 
northern allies, to carry the sectional evil of slavery into the 
free States ; or in whatsoever efforts it may make to extend the 
5ec^/o?iaZ domination of slavery over the national Government." 
Soon after his introduction to the Senate, he appeared as the 
able advocate of aid to railroads through the new "Western 
States. His first grand effort, however, in the Senate, was his 
speech, on the 26th of August, 1852, on his motion to repeal 
the Fugitive Slave hill, entitled. Freedom National, Slavery Sec- 
tional. He had been for a long time deprived — through the 
action of the pro-slavery members of the Senate, who were de- 
termined to trample upon the freedom of speech on the ques- 
tion of slavery — of the chance of speaking on this question ; 
but when, seizing a parliamentary opportunity, he at length 
gained the floor, he rebuked, in terms of lofty but scathing 
rebuke, the attempt to muzzle public debate ; and, with indig- 
nant eloquence, denounced the Fugitive Slave bill as cruel, 
tyrannical, and uncpnstitutional. His next great effort was 
his speech before the Senate, February, 21, 1851, entitled. The 
Landmark of Freedom ; Freedom National; against the repeal of 
the Missouri prohibition of slavery south of thirty-six degrees 



382 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

thirty minutes, in the Kansas and Nebraska bill. Speaking of 
that " Question of questions, — as far above others as liberty ia 
above the common things of life — which it opens anew for 
judgment," he said, " Sir, the bill which you are now ahout to pass, 
is at once the worst and the best bill on which Conrjress has ever acted. 
Yes, sir, Worst and Best at the same time. It is the worst 
bill, inasmuch as it is a present victory of slavery. In a Chris- 
tian land, and in an age of civilization, a time-honored statute 
of freedom is struck down, opening the way to all the countless 
woes and wrongs of human bondage. Among the crimes of 
history, another is about to be recorded, which no tears can 
blot out, and which, in better days, will be read with uni- 
versal shame. Do not start. The tea tax and stamp act, which 
aroused the patriotic rage of our fathers, were virtues by the 
side of your transgression ; nor would it be easy to imagine, at 
this day, any measure which more openly and perversely defied 
every sentiment of justice, humanity, and Christianity. Am I 
not right, then, in calling it the worst bill on which Congress 
ever acted ? 

" But there is another side to which I gladly turn. Sir, it is 
the best bill on which Congress ever acted; /or it annuls all past 
compromises with slavery, and makes all future compromises impossi- 
ble. Thus it puts freedom and slavery face to face, and bids them 
grapple. Who can doubt the result ? It opens wide the door 
of the future, when, at last, there will really be a North, and 
the slave power will be broken ; when this wretched despotism 
will cease to dominate over our Government, no longer impress- 
ing itself upon every thing at home and abroad ; when the 
national Government shall be divorced, in every way from 
slavery ; and, according to the true intention of our fathers, 
freedom sliall be established by Congress everywhere, at least 
beyond the local limits of the States. Slavery will then be 



HON. CHARLi:S SUMNER. 883 

driven from its usurped foothold here in the District of Colum- 
bia, in the national territories and elsewhere beneath the 
national flag ; the Fugitive Slave bill, as vile as it is unconstitu- 
tional, will become a dead letter ; and the domestic slave trade, 
80 far as it can be reached, but especially on the high seas, will 
be blasted by Congressional prohibition. Everywhere, within 
the sphere of Congress, the great Northern hammer will descend 
to smite the wrong ; and the irresistible cry will break forth : 
' No more slave States.' 

" Thus, sir, now standing at the very grave of freedom in 
Nebraska and Kansas, I lift myself to the vision of that happy 
resurrection, by which freedom will be secured, not only in 
these territories, but everywhere under the national Govern- 
ment. More closely than ever before, I now penetrate that 
" All-hail hereafter," when slavery must disappear. Proudly I 
discern the flag of my country, as it ripples in every breeze, at 
last become in reality, as in name, the flag of freedom — 
undoubted, pure, and irresistible. Am I not right, then, in 
calling this bill the best on which Congress ever acted ? 

" Sorrowfully, I bend before the wrong you are about to com 
mit ; joyfully, I welcome all the promises of the future." 

On the 26th and. 28th of June, 1854, Mr. Sumner, on the 
Boston memorial for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave bill, replied 
to Messrs. Jones of Tennessee, Butler of South Carolina, and 
Mason of Virginia, in eloquent speeches, full of interesting facts, 
and fine oratory. These were followed, July 31st, by his 
memorable speech on the " struggle for the repeal of the Fugitive 
Slave bill," in support of a motion for repeal of said bill, the 
introduction of which the Senate finally refused, although, in so 
doing, they overturned two undoubted parliamentary rules. 

After the close of the Congressional session, he addressed the 
Kepublican State Convention, at "Worcester, Massachusetts, on 



884 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

the 1st of September, 1854, on the duties of Massachusetts at tlie 
'present crisis ; and during the following Congressional session of 
185-1-5, he was again found at the front, stoutly battling for 
human rights. "When, in February, 1855, Mr. Toucey, of Con- 
necticut, moved his " bill to protect officers and other persons 
acting under the authority of the United States," Mr. Sumner 
took the floor with his masterly speech on the Demands of Free- 
dom — Repeal of the Fugitive Slave hill. Again, on the 9th of May, 
1855, in the Metropolitan theatre of New "Sork, he delivered 
a public address on the Anti-slavery Enterprise, which produced a 
profound impression upon the communit}^ On the 2d of 
November, 1855, he spoke before a public meeting in Faneuil 
Hall, Boston, on the Slave Oligarchy and its Usurpations — the 
Outrages in Kansas — the Different Political parties — the Republican 
•party — a concise, forcible and eloquent presentation of the his- 
tory of the great American question. 

On this question, indeed, Mr. Sumner had now become the 
recognized leader of the anti-slavery party in the Senate. 
Favored with a commanding and attractive person, a dignified 
and captivating delivery, a strong and melodious voice, a mind 
endowed with rare capabilities and still rarer acquired graces 
of education, and treasures of knowledge; and, beyond all, a 
truthfulness of character which gives additional emphasis to 
every word which he utters^ Charles Sumner was a repre- 
sentative of whom the Old Bay State had every reason to be 
proud; a champion of freedom, justice, and humanity, whose 
influence and integrity Avere undoubted. The moment was 
now at hand when the eloquent orator was to become a bleeding 
witness, and well nigh a martyr to that " barbarism of slavery," 
which he had so often denounced with unsparing tongue. 
On the 19th and 20th of ^lay, 1856, during the animated and 
protracted debate om the admission of Kansas as a State of the 



HON". CIIAKLES SUMNEK. 385 

Union, Mr. Sumiicr delivered in the Senate a speech of sur- 
passing eloquence and power on the Crime against Kansas — tlie 
Apologies for the Crime — tJie True Remedy. In the course of tliis 
speech, which has been well esteemed as " one of the grandest 
efforts of modern oratory — one of the most commanding, irre- 
sistible, and powerful speeches ever made in the Senate of the 
United States," he vindicated, in fervid terms, the fair fixme of his 
native State, and with keen sarcasm, severe invective, and irre- 
sistible argument, traced the course of slavery arrogance and 
domination in Kansas, concluding with the following feeling 
peroration : " In just regard for free labor in that territory, 
which it is sought to blast by unwelcome association with slave- 
labor ; in Christian sympathy with the slave, whom it is pro- 
posed to task and sell there ; in stern condemnation of the crime 
which has been consummated on that beautiful soil ; in rescue 
of felloA\^-citizens, now subjugated to a tyrannical usurpation ; 
in dutiful respect for the early fathers, whose inspirations are 
now ignobly thwarted ; in the name of the Constitution, which 
has been outraged — of the laws trampled down — of justice 
banished — of humanity degraded — of peace destroyed — of free- 
dom crushed to earth ; and in the name of the Heavenly Father 
whose service is perfect freedom, I make this last appeal." 
This speech greatly incensed the southern members in Con- 
gress, and was the alleged provocation for the cruel and cowardly 
assault made upon him. 

On Thursday, May 22d, two days after this speech, as Mr 
Sumner was sitting at his desk in the Senate chamber, busied 
with his correspondence, after the adjournment of the day, he 
was suddenly attacked by Preston S. Brooks, a member of the 
Ilouse, from South Carolina, a nephew of Senator Butler, to 
whom Mr. Sumner had replied, who felled him to the floor with a 
heavy cane, with which he continued to belabor his unconscious 



386 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

victim over tlie bead, Avhile Mr. Keitt, anotlier Soutli Carolina 
Congressman, stood by, witb arms in band, to prevent any 
interference on tbe part of Mr. Sumner's friends. Tbe few 
gentlemen wbo were present in tbe Senate cbamber, were at 
first apparently paralyzed by tbe scene, but Messrs. Morgan and 
Murray of New York, and Mr. Cbittenden, rusbed to bis aid, 
and finally succeeded in wresting tbe infuriated scions of 
" cbivalry" from tbe object of tbeir fiendisb malevolence ; and 
tbey were subsequently censured by tbe House, and resigned 
tbeir seats, botb ultimately dying miserable and disbonorable 
deatbs. Tbe brutal attack tborougbly aroused tbe citizens of 
tbe Nortbern States to tbe realization of tbe true cbaracter of 
slavery as manifested in its advocates. Large indignation 
meetings were beld in many towns and cities of tbe land, from 
tbe east to tbe west ; and tbis attempt to stifle freedom of speecb 
resulted in a concentration of public sentiment in regard to tbe 
assumptions of tbe Soutb, wbicb tended greatly to diffuse and 
promote tbe spirit of true liberty. 

Tbe injuries inflicted upon Mr. Sumner were of tbe severest 
cbaracter, and resulted in a long continued and alarming 
disability, wbicb obliged bim to seek recreation and medical 
advice and treatment in Europe. For more tban tbree years, 
be was a great and constant sufferer, and bis final recovery 
was due, under God, to tbe skill of tbe eminent Frencb surgeon. 
Dr. Brown-Scquard, and to bis own remarkably vigorous and 
bealtby constitution. In 1860, baving recovered bis bealtb, be 
took an active part in tbe presidential canvass, wbicb resulted 
in tbe election of Abrabam Lincoln. 

During tbis year, also, be delivered bis great oration on tbe 
"Barbarism of Slavery," tbe complement of tbe one for wbicb 
lie was so brutally assaulted. 

During tbe di^^.ussions in tbe Senate, wbicb were finally 



HON. CHARLES SUMNEE. 387 

terminated by the secession of tlic Southern States, ho earnestly 
opposed all concession and compromise ; and was one of the 
earliest advocates of emancipation as a speedy mode of bringing 
the war to an end. He was re-elected to the Senate in 1863, 
for a term ending March 4th, 1869, and his course has sinco 
been in perfect accordance vdth his previous career. 

As chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, the most 
important of all the Senate committees, in many respects, he 
has maintained the honor of the country through a period of 
extraordinary difficulty. He was also a member of the Com- 
mittee on the District of Columbia, and was mainly instrumen- 
tal in procuring the abolition of slaver}^ and impartial suffrage 
in the district. 

Among Mr. Sumner's oratorical efforts, we may especially 
mention an oration delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa society 
of Howard university, on the 27th of August, 1846, entitled, 
the ScJioIar, the Jurist^ tlie Artist^ the Philanthropist^ a series of elo- 
quent and touching tributes to the memory of a rare quaternion 
of noble spirits, John Pickering, Joseph Story, Washington 
Allston, and William Ellery Channing; an oration, delivered 
August 11th, 1817, before the literary societies of Amherst 
college, on Fame and Olory^ being an unanswerable argument in 
behalf of peace ; an oration before the Phi Beta Kappa society 
of Union college, July 25th, 1848, on the Laiuof Suman Progress; 
and an admirable address, Nov. 15, 1854, before the Mercantile 
Library Association of Boston, on " the Position and Duties of the 
Merchant; illustrated hy the life of Granville SliarpJ'' His col- 
lected speeches have passed through many editions, and he is 
also the author of a work on " White Slavery in the Barbary 
States." 

Mr. Sumner is, in the highest sense of the term, a statesman; 
his views are broad and comprehensive, and every measure 



388 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

presented by bim is subjected at once to the conclusive test of 
principle. Even his bitterest enemies have never dared to 
whisper the shadow of a doubt of his integrity and purity of 
character. He is not faultless ; no public man can lay claim to 
entire freedom from faults, but his foibles and infirmities never 
have, and never will, impair his lofty patriotism, his proud 
devotion to his country, or his uprightness and unspotted repu- 
tation. If there were more like him in the Senate, that body 
would be purer and better than it now is. 



HON. HENRY WILSON, 

U. S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS. 




T7& 

ROM the lowliest to tlie loftiest station — from extreme 

penury, the hard grinding poverty which knows the 
bitter experiences of hunger, and insufficient clothing, 
^ and wearisome toil, even in childhood, from the early 
dawn far into the hours of night, to the comforts and enjoy- 
ments of refmed society, and a position in the highest legisla- 
tive body in the world, the American Senate — these are the 
vicissitudes through which more than one of our eminent states- 
men have passed. Senator Wilson is one of those whose lives 
have not been all sunshine, and who have attained their present 
high station only througli labor and struggles, which less reso- 
lute, earnest men would have deemed beyond human power and 
endurance. 

Henky Wilson was born in Farmington, ISTew Hampshire, 
February 16th, 1812. His parents were extremely poor : and 
this son they were driven, by their poverty, to bind out to a 
farmer, as an apprentice, when he was but ten years of age. 
The apprenticeship was for eleven years, an age to a boy. It 
would seem, however, that he fell into good hands; for, though 
faring much as other bound-boys do, in regard to the labor of 
the farm, he liad his fair share of schooling, and by some appro- 
priation of the hours usually devoted to sleep, and a careful 

389 



890 MEN OF OUR DAT. 

husbaiidiug of those wliicli lie could rightfully call his owU; he 
had managed, in those eleven years, to read eagerly and treasure, 
in part at least, in his memory, more than a thousand volumes 
of history, biography, travel, discovery, etc. There was no 
reason to fear that a boy, so ravenously hungry for knowledoe, 
would remain through life in a position as humble as that from 
which he sprung. Senator Wilson has none of that miserable 
snobbishness, which leads some men to desire to conceal their 
humble birth. No! he glories rather in being "a son of the 
soil." "Witness his reply to that infamous speech of Governor 
Hammond," of South Carolina, in wliicli he characterized work- 
ing men as mudsills, and asserted that, " the hireling manual 
laborers," Avho lived by daily toil, were "essentially slaves." 
To these taunts, Mr. Wilson replied : 

"Sir, I am a son of a hireling 'manual laborer;' who, with 
the frosts of seventy winters on his brow, ' lives by daily labor.' 
I, too, have ' lived by daily labor.' I, too, have been a ' hire- 
ling manual laborer.' Poverty cast its dark and chilling 
shadow over the home of my childhood ; and want was some- 
times there — an unbidden guest. At the age of ten years — to 
aid him who gave me being in keeping the gaunt spectre from 
the hearth of the mother who bore me, — I left the home of my 
boyhood, and went forth to earn my bread by ' daily labor.' " 

A noble, manly avowal, which ought to have won the respect 
of the haughty slavocrat, who was himself not more than two 
generations removed from the " mudsills," whom he contemned. 

When Mr. Wilson was twenty-one years of age, he left New 
Hampshire, and entered a shoe-sliop at Natick, Massachusetts, 
to learn the art and mystery of shoemaking. He labored at 
this trade for three years, and, at the end of that time, having, 
as he supposed, earned a sufficient sum to enable him to obtain 
a collegiate education, he returned to New Hampshire, and, in 



HON. HENRY WILSON. 391 

1836, eutered Strafford Academy, to complete liis preparation 
for college. 

A few weeks previous to this, however, he had visited the 
national capital, and listened to the exciting debates in the 
Senate chamber and the hall of Eepresentatives. There he had 
seen Piuckney's resolutions, against the reception of anti-slavery 
petitions, receive a majority vote in the house, and Calhoun's 
Incendiary Publication Bill, pass the Senate by the casting vote 
of Vice-President Yan Buren. He had visited, too, Williams's 
slave-pen; had seen men and women in chains, put upon the 
auction block, for the crime of possessing " a skin darker than 
his own," and sold to hopeless slavery in the far southwest. 
Shoemakers are proverbially thoughtful men, and this one was 
no exception to the rule. He thought deeply and sadly of the 
horrors and aggressions of slavery, its inhuman cruelties, its 
traffic in the souls and bodies of men, its deliberate trampling 
upon the political as well as social rights of the nation, and 
from that day forth, the settled purpose of his heart was to 
make war upon slavery. That purpose he has never changed. 
His method of coiiducting the contest may have differed, some- 
times, from those of other prominent anti-slavery leaders ; they 
may have been as good, or better, or worse ; but to one aim 
he has ever been true, the overthrow of the slave power. At 
the close of his first term at Straffbi'd academy, at the public 
exhibition, he maintained the affirmative of the question, 
"Ought Slavery to be abolished in the District of Columbia?'' 
in an oration of decided ability. Early the next year, the 
young men of New Hampshire held an Anti-slavery Conven- 
tion, at Concord, and Mr. Wilson, who was then attending the 
academy at Concord, was a delegate to the convention, and took 
an active part in itSjtleliberations. 

The opportunities of our young shoemaker for attaining a 



392 AIEX OF OUP. DAY. 

hiaber education in academies and collcoes ^vcre destined to be 
short. The man to whom he had entrusted the hard-earned 
little hoard which was to pay his way through college, became 
insolvent, and the money was wholly lost. Sorrowful, but not 
despondent, he retraced his steps to Natick, and, after teaching 
school for a time, engaged in the shoe manufacturing business, 
and prospered. He continued in this pursuit for several years, 
still employing all his leisure in mental cultivation. In 18-10, 
he took an active part in promoting the election of General 
Harrison, making more than sixty speeches, during the cam- 
paign, and proving a very effective political speaker. He was 
elected the same autumn to the house of representatives of the 
State legislature, and re-elected in 18-il. In 1844: and 1845, 
he was chosen as State Senator from his district. He took an 
active part in favor of the admission of colored children into 
the public schools, the protection of colored seamen in South 
Carolina, and in opposition to the annexation of Texas. In 
the autumii of 1845, he got up a convention, in the county of 
Middlesex, at wliich a committee was appointed,, which obtained 
nearly a hundred thousand signatures to petitions against the 
admission of Texas, as a slave State ; and with the poet Whit- 
tier, was ai)pointed a committee to carry the petitions to Wash- 
ington. In 1846, Mr. Wilson was again a member of the house 
of representatives. He introduced the resolution, declaring the 
continued opposition of !^.Iassachusetts to " the farther extension 
and longer existence of slavery in America," and made an elab- 
orate speech in its favor, which was pronounced by Mr. Garri- 
.son, in " The Liheraior^^^ to be the most comprehensive and ex- 
haustive speecb on slavery ever made in any legislative body 
in the United States. 

Mr. Wilson was a dele2:ate to the Whig National Convention 
at Philadelphia, in 1848; and on the rejection by the Conveu- 



HON. HENRY WILSON. * 393 

tion of the Wilrnot Proviso, and the nomiuation of General 
Taylor, he deuouuced its action, retired from it, returned home, 
and issued an address to the people of his district vindicating 
his action. He purchased " The Boston Repuhlican^^^ the organ 
of the Free-soil party in ]\[assachusotts, and edited it for more 
than two years. 

In 1850, Mr. Wilson was again a member of the Massachu- 
setts House of Representatives, and the candidate of the Free- 
soil members for Speaker. He was the chairman of the State 
Central Free-soil Committee ; was the originator and organizer 
of the celebrated coalition between the Free-soil and Democratic 
parties, which made Mr. Boutwell governor in 1851 and 1852, 
and sent Mr. Rantoul and Mr. Sumner to the Senate of the 
United States. He was a member of the State Senate in 1851 
and 1852, and president of that body in those years. In 1852, 
he was a delegate to the Free-soil National Convention at Pitts- 
burg ; was made president of the convention, and chairman of 
the ISTational Committee. He was the Free-soil candidate for 
Congress in 1852 ; and though his party was in a minority, in 
the district, of nearly eight thousand, he was beaten by only 
ninety -three votes. He was a member of the Massachusetts Con- 
stitutional Convention in 1853, and took a leading part in its 
deliberations. In 1853 and 185-1, Mr. Wilson was the candidate 
of the Free-soil party for Governor of Massachusetts ; and in 
1855 he was elected to the Senate to fill the vacancy occasioned 
by the resignation of* Mr. Everett. 

" Time," it is said, "often brino-s its whirlio-icr of reveno-es :" 

7 7 O O O O 7 

but it is seldom the case that one occurs more marked than this. 
Tiie Whig party of Massachusetts was essentially an aristocratic 
party ; its leaders were all men of high culture, of great refine- 
ment, fastidious in the extreme — and though, u^Don occasion, 
professing great friendship and regard for the working- men, 



394 3IEX OF OUIt DAY. 

they were generally very careful to avoid any close contact 
with them. Edward Everett, a good, though timid man, an 
elegant scholar, a courteous gentleman, and the associate and 
friend of the titled aristocracy of Great Britain, had repre- 
sented them in the Senate. Mr. Sumner had been his colleague 
for a yea.r or two previous, it is true, and this annoj-ed them. 
But Mr. Sumner was an elegant scholar, a man of refinement, 
and of a distinguished family; so that, notwithstanding his abo- 
litionism, they could endure him. But imagine the horror of 
the Winthrops, the Appletons, the Lawrences, and the rest of 
the cotton lords, on learning that the Natick shoemaker, whom 
they had been disposed to snub when he was a member of their 
party, and whose defection to the ranks of the Free-soilers they 
had regarded as rather a matter of rejoicing than regret, had 
the audacity to be a candidate for the Senatorship which Ed- 
ward Everett had filled ! and, what was worse, was actually 
elected ! They denounced, in no measured terms, this disgrace 
to the old and fair fame of Massachusetts. 

But the Natick mechanic, like another mechanic from Wal- 
tham, who was elected to Congress the same year, and who was 
subsequently the governor of the State, proved to be no boor. 
He was not, perhaps, equal to his predecessor in classic or 
belles-lettres scholarship, but ho had made the most of his 
scanty opportunities of intellectual culture. He was a gentle- 
man in his manners and address, and in thorough mastery 
of all political questions relating to our own government, and 
able, fearless exposition of the principles which lie at the founda- 
tion of all good government, he was the peer of Mr. Everett, 
or any man in the Senate. So fully have the people of Massa- 
chusetts been satisfied of his ability to represent the State, and 
of his industry and faithfulness as a legislator, that they have 



HON. HENRY WILSON, 395 

twice re-elected liim, for the term of six years, by tin almost 
unanimous vote of their Legislature. 

In the Senate, from the 10th of February, 1855, the day on 
Avhich he first took his seat, he has been the inflexible and re- 
lentless enemy of slavery, and has done as much, or more, than 
any other man in the nation for its overthrow. In his first 
speech, made a few days after entering the Senate, he announced 
the uncompromising position of himself and his anti-slavery 
friends to be, " We mean, sir, to place in the councils of the 
nation, men who, in the words of Jefferson, ' have sworn, on the 
altar of God, eternal hostility to every kind of oppression over 
the mind and body of man.' " Mr. Wilson was a member of 
the American National Council, held at Philadelphia in 1855, 
and the acknowledged leader of the opponents of slavery. In 
response to a rude menace of one of the southern leaders, who 
left his scat, crossed the room, and, with his hand upon his re- 
volver, took a seat beside him while addressing the conven- 
tion, Mr. Wilson said — " Threats have no terrors for freemen ; I 
am ready to meet argument with argument, scorn with scorn, 
and, if need be, blow with blow. It is time the champions of 
slavery in the South should realize the fact, that the past is 
theirs — the future, ours." Under this head, the anti-slavery 
delegates issued a protest against the action of the National 
Council, seceded from it, disrupted the organization, and broke 
its power forever. 

When, in the spring of 1856, Mr. Sumner was assailed in the 
Senate chamber by Preston S. Brooks, of South Carolina, for 
words spoken in debate, Mr. Wilson, on the floor of the Sen- 
ate, characterized that act as "Brutal, murderous, and cow- 
ardly." These words, uttered in the Senate chamber, drew 
forth a challenge from Brooks ; to which Mr. Wilson replied, 
in words which were enthusiastically applauded by the country, 



396 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

" I have always regarded duelling as a lingering relic of bar- 
barous civilization, wlaich the law of the countr}^ has branded 
as a crime. While, therefore, I religiously believe in the right of 
self-defence, in its broadest sense, the law of my country, and 
the matured convictions of my whole life, alike forbid me to 
meet you for the purpose indicated in your letter." This re- 
sponse to the drunken and blood-thirsty bully who had sent 
the challenge, was effectual. He did not desire to prosecute a 
quarrel with -a man who " believed in the right of self-defence 
in its broadest sense," and he wisely concluded to let Mr. Wil- 
son alone. For the four or five years that followed, the position 
of Mr. Wilson as one of the acknowledged leaders of the Tie- 
publican party, then a small minority in the Senate, was one 
of great difficulty ; yet he never faltered or flinched. Base 
and outrageous measures, in the interests of slavery, were 
passed by the majority, but never without his earnest protest, 
and his exhausting all possible means of opposition to them, 
The members of that gallant band of Eepublicans in the Sen- 
ate, knew that they could always confide in the strong common 
sense, the unfailing command of temper, and the ready and 
skilful use of all the resources which his thorough knowledge 
of political tactics, and of parliamentary rules, enabled him to 
command : and they were content to organize for each contest 
under his direction. 

In the new distribution of committees in the Senate, made 
by Yice-President Hamlin, in March, 1861, Mr. Wilson was 
wisely assigned to the chairmanship of the committee on Mili- 
tary Affairs. For four years previous he had been a member 
of that committee, when Jefferson Davis was its chairman, and, 
though in a minority, had profited by his position in becoming 
thoroughly familiar with all the details of the condition of the 
arms and defences of the country, and the state of the army and 



HON. HENRY WILSON. 397 

its officers. To it lie now brought his indomitable energy and 
tireless industry. Its duties were multiplied a hundred fold in 
the four years that followed. 

The important legislation for raising, organiiiing, and govern- 
ing the armies, originated m that committee, or was passed upon 
by it ; and eleven thousand nominations, from the second lieu- 
tenant to the lieutenant-general, were referred to it. The labors 
of Mr. Wilson as chairman of the committee were immense. 
Important legislation affecting the armies, and the thousands of 
nominations, could not but excite the liveliest interest of 
officers and their friends ; and they ever freely visited him, 
consulted with and wrote to him. Private soldiers, too, ever felt 
at liberty to visit him or write to him concerning their affairs. 
Thousands diil so ; and so promptly did he attend to their 
needs, that they christened him the " Soldier's Friend." 

Having been, for twentj^-llve years, the unflinching foe of 
slavery, and all that belonged or pertained to it, comprehending 
the magnitude of the issues, and fully understanding the charac- 
ter of the secession leaders, Mr. Wilson believed that the 
conflict, whenever the appeal should be made to arms, would be 
one of gigantic proportions. Being in Washington when Fort 
Sumter fell, he was one among the few who advised that the 
call should be for three hundred thousand instead of seventy- 
five thousand men. On the day that call was made, he induced 
the Secretary of \Var to double the number of regiments appor- 
tioned to Massachusetts. 

Eeturning to Massachusetts, he met the sixth regiment on its 
way to the protection of the capital. He had hardly reached 
Boston when the startling intelligence came that the regiment 
had been fired upon in the streets of Baltimore. Having 
passed that anxious night in the company of his friend General 
Schoulcr, adjutant-general of the commonwealth, discussing 



398 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

the future that darkly loomed up before them, he left the next 
day for Washington. He sailed from New York, on the 21st 
of April, with the forces leaving that day, and found General 
Butler at Annapolis, and communication with the capital closed. 
At the request of General Butler, he returned to New York, 
obtained from General Wool several heavy cannon for the 
protection of Annapolis, and then went to Washington, where 
he remained most of the time, until the meeting of Congress, 
franking letters for the soldiers, working in the hospitals, and 
preparing military measures to be presented when Congress 
should meet on the -ith of July. On the second day of the 
session, ^[r. AVilson introduced five bills and a joint resolution. 
The first ])ill was a measure authorizing the employment of five 
hundred thousand volunteers for three years, to aid in enforc- 
ing the laws ; the second was a measure increasing the regular 
army by the addition of twenty-five thousand men ; the third 
was a measure providing for the " better organization of the 
military establishment," in twenty-five sections, embracing very 
important provisions. These three measures were referred to 
the Military Committee, promptly reported back by Mr. Wilson, 
slightly amended, and enacted into laws. The joint resolution 
to ratify and confirm certain acts of the President for the sup- 
pression of insurrection and rebellion was reported, debated 
at great length, but failed to pass, though its most important 
provisions were, on his motion, incorporated with another 
measure. 

Mr. Wilson, at the called session, introduced a bill in addi- 
tion to the " Act to authorize the Employment of Volunteers," 
which authorized the President to accept five hundred thousand 
more volunteers, and io appoint for the command of the volun- 
teer forces, such number of major and brigadier generals as in 
his judgiULMit might be required ; and this measure was passed. 



HON. HENRY WILSON. 399 

He introduced bills "to authorize the President to appoint 
additional aides-de-camp," containing a provision abolishing 
flogging in the army ; " to make appropriations ;" " to provide 
for the purchase of arms, ordnance, aDd ordnance stores;" and 
" to increase the corps of engineers ; " all of whicli were enacted. 
He introduced also a bill, whicli was passed, " to increase the 
pay of the privates," which raised the pay of the soldiers from 
eleven to thirteen dollars per month and provided that all the 
acts of the President respecting the army and navy should be 
approved, legalized and made valid. The journals of the 
Senate, and the " Congressional Globe," bear ample evidence that 
Mr. Wilson's labors at this period were incessant, in originating 
and pressing forward the measures for increasing and organ- 
izing the armies, to meet the varied exigencies of the mighty 
conflict so suddenly forced upon the nation. 

At the close of the session. General Scott emphatically de- 
clared that Senator Wilson had done more work, in that short 
session, than all the chairmen of the military committees had 
done in the last twenty years. Indeed, so highly did the veteran 
general-in-chief prize his labors, that, on the 10th of August, 
1861, he addressed him an autograph letter, thanking him most 
warmly for his able and zealous efforts, and expressing the hope 
that it might be long before the army should lose his valuable 
services in the same capacity. 

A fondness for military studies, and a considerable experience 
in the organization of the militia, in which, before becoming a 
Senator, he had passed through the various official grades up 
to the rank of brigadier-general, added to the very large 
amount of theoretical knowledge acquired in his service on the 
military committee, rendered it desirable that Senator Wilson 
should hold a military command, and accordingly, after the 
adjournment of Congress, General Scott recommended to the 



^ 400 MEN OF OUR DAT. 

President, tlie appointment of Senator AVilson to tLe office 
of brigadier-general of volunteers; but, as the acceptance of 
sucli a position would have required the resignation of his seat 
in the Senate, the subject was, after consideration, dropped. 
Anxious, however, to do something for the endangered country 
during the recess of Congress, 'Mr. Wilson made an arrange- 
ment with General McClellan to go on his staff, as a volunteer 
aide-de-camp, with the rank of colonel ; but at the pressing 
solicitation of Mr. Cameron, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Chase, who 
were very anxious to give a new impulse to volunteering, then 
somewhat checked by the defeat at Bull Eun, he accepted 
authority to raise a regiment of infantry, a company of sharp- 
shooters, and a battery of artillery. Returning to Massachu- 
setts, he issued a stirring appeal to the young men of the State, 
called and addressed several public meetings, and in forty days 
j&lled to overfloAving the twenty-second regiment, one company 
of sharpshooters, two batteries, and nine companies of the 
twenty-third regiment, in all, numbering nearly two thousand 
three hundred men. He was commissioned colonel of the 
twenty-second regiment, with the distinct understanding that 
he would remain with the regiment but a brief period, and 
would arrange with the War Department, to have an accom- 
plished army ofl&cer for its commander. With the twenty - 
second regiment, a company of sharpshoutev:--, nnd the third 
battery of artiller}^, he went to Washington, and was assigned 
to General Martindale's brigade, in Fitz John Porter's division, 
stationed at Hall's hill in Virginia. The passage of the regi- 
ment, from their camp at Lynnfield to Washington, was an 
ovation. On Boston Common, a splendid flag was presented 
to the regiment by Robert C. Winthrop ; in New York, a flag 
■was presented by James T. Brady, and a banquet given by the 
citizens, which was attended by eminent men of all parties. 



HON. HENRY WILSON. 401 

After a brief period, General Wilson, at the solicitation of the 
Secretary of War, resigned his commision, put the accomplished 
Colonel Gove 'of the regular army in command of his regiment, 
and took the position of volunteer aid, with the rank of 
colonel, on the staff of General McClellan, The Secretary of 
War, in pressing General Wilson to resign his commision 
and take this position, expressed the opinion that it would 
enable him, by practical observation of the condition and actual 
experience of the organization of the arm^^, the better to pre- 
pare the proper legislation to give the highest development 
and efficiency to the military forces. He served on General 
McClellan's staff until the 9th of January, 1862, when pressing 
duties in Congress forced him to tender his resignatioD. In 
accepting it. Adjutant- General Williams said : — 

" The major-general commanding, desires me to acknowledge 
the receipt of your letter of the 9th instant, in which you 
tender your resignation of the appointment of aid-de-camp upon 
his staff. The reasons assigned in your letter are such, that the 
general is not permitted any other course than that of directing 
the acceptance of your resignation. He wishes me to add, that 
it is with regret that he sees the termination of the pleasant 
official relations which have existed between you and himself; 
and that he yields with reluctance to the necessity created by 
the pressure upon you of other and more important public 
duties." 

During the second session of the XXXVIlth Congress, Mr. 
Wilson originated, introduced, and carried through, several 
measures of vital importance to the army, and the interests of 
the country. Among these measures, were the bills " relating 
to courts-martial ;" " to provide for allotment certi'ficates ;" "for 
the better organization of the signal department of the army ;" 
" for the appointment of sutlers in the volunteer service, and 

26 



4:02 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

defining their duties ;" " authorizing the President to assign ihe 
command of troops in the same field or department, to ofiicers 
of the same grade, without regard to seniority ;•" " to increase 
the efficiency of the medical department of the army ;" " to 
facilitate the discharge of enlisted men for physical disability ;" 
"to provide additional medical officers of the volunteer ser- 
vice;" "to encourage enlistments in the regular army, and 
volunteer forces ;" " for the presentation of medals of honor to 
enlisted men of the^ army and volunteer forces, who have dis- 
tinguished, or who may distinguish themselves in battle during 
the present rebellion ;" " to define the pay and emoluments of 
certain officers of the army, and for other purposes," — a bill of 
twenty-two sections of important provisions; and "to amend the 
act calling forth the militia to execute the laws, suppress insur- 
rection, and repel invasion." This last bill authorized for the 
first time the enrolment in the militia, and the drafting, of 
negroes; and empowered the President to accept, organize, 
and arm colored men for military purposes. Military measures 
introduced by other Senators, or originating in the House, and 
amendments made to Senate bills in the House, were referred 
to the Committee on Military Affairs, imposing upon Mr. 
Wilson much care and labor. 

During the session, Mr. Cameron, the Secretary of War, 
resigned ; and on leaving the department, he said, in a letter to 
Senator Wilson : — " No man, in ray opinion, in the whole 
country, has done more to aid the War Department in pre- 
paring the mighty army now under arms, than yourself; and, 
before leaving this city, I think it my duty to offer to you my 
sincere thanks, as its late head. As chairman of the Military 
Committee of the Senate, your services were invaluable. At 
the first call for troops, you came here ; and up to the meeting 
of Congress, a period of more than six months, your labors 



HON. HENRY WILSON. 408 

were incessant ; sometimes in encouraging the administration 
by assurance of support from Congress, by encouraging volun- 
teering in your own State, by raising a rogiraent yourself, when 
other men began to fear that compulsory drafts might be neces- 
sary ; and in the Senate, by preparing the bills, and assisting to 
get the necessary appropriations for organizing, clothing, arm- 
ing, and supplying the army, you have been constantly and 
profitably employed in the great cause of putting down this 
unnatural rebellion." 

Mr. Cameron was succeeded by Mr, Stanton, whose rapid 
intuitions, indomitable energy, and wonderful industry, and exe- 
cutive ability, have been made so manifest during the past six 
years, and have enabled him to accomplish more than any 
other man could have done for the prosecution of the war. 
That Mr. Stanton's manner is brusque and abrupt, is well 
known, but his relations with Mr. Wilson, which were constant 
throughout the war, were of the most cordial and friendly 
character, and the secretary always found in him a prompt and 
able defender. In the last session of the XXXYIIth, and the 
whole of the XXXYIIIth Congress, Mr Wilson labored with 
the same vigor and persistency to organize and develop the 
military resources of the nation, to do justice to the officers, and 
to care for the soldiers. Aside from the numerous bills which, 
though originating with him, were offered by others, and the 
amendments which he suggested to bills originating with other 
Senators, or with the House of Representatives, the following 
important measures were introduced and advocated by him, 
and passed through his efforts: — "An act to facilitate the dis- 
charge of disabled soldiers, and the inspection of convalescent 
camps and hospitals;" "to improve the organization of the 
cavalry forces ;" " to authorize an increase in the number of 
major and brigadier-generals ;" " for enrolling and calling out 



404 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

the national forces, and for other purposes ;" (this act contained 
thirty-eiglit sections, and was one of the most important passed 
durino- the session ;) " to amend an act entitled ' An act fof 
enrolling and calling out the national forces;'" (this bill con- 
tained the provision that "colored persons should, on being 
mustered into the service, become free ;") " an act to establish a 
uniform system of ambulances in the armies;" "to increase 
the pay of soldiers in the United States army, and for other 
purposes ;" (this increased the pay of a private soldier to sixteen 
dollars a month ;) " to provide for the examination of certain 
officers of the army ;" " to provide for the better organization 
of the Quartermaster's Department ;" " an act in addition to the 
several acts for enrolling and calling out the national forces ;" 
" to incorporate a national military and naval asylum for the 
relief of totally disabled men of the volunteer forces;" "to in- 
corporate the National Freedmen's Saving Bank ;" '' to incorpo- 
rate the National Academy of Sciences;" (the humble shoe- 
maker perfecting and reporting a bill for the organization of 
an association of the most learned and scientific men of the 
nation !) " to encourage enlistments, and promote the efficiency 
of the military and naval forces, to making free the wives and 
children of colored soldiers ;" and a joint resolution " to en- 
courage the employment of disabled and discharged soldiers." 
The important legislation securing to colored soldiers equality 
of pay, from the 1st of January, 1864, and to officers in the field 
an increase in the commutation-price of the ration ; and three 
months' extra pay to those who should continue in service to 
the close of the war, was moved by Mr. Wilson upon appropri- 
ation-bills. 

With the close of the XXXVIIIth Congress, or rather 
shortly after its adjournment, came the conclusion of the war. 
But the assembling ef the XXXIXth Congress, in the follow- 



HON. HENRY WILSON. 405 

ing December, brought no cessation of labor to Mr vYilson, 
The bill for the continuation of the Freedmen's Bureau, the 
Civil Eights bill, the Fourteenth Constitutional Amendment, 
the questions of the basis of representation, negro sufl'rage^.and 
the Eeconstruction acts of that and the XLth Congress, as 
well as the matter of impeachment, all demanded his attention. 
The creation of the rank of general in the army, and admiral in 
the navy, both originated with his committee, and he had the 
satisfaction of seeing Lieutenant-General Grant appointed to the 
one, and Vice-Admiral Farragut to the other, and the two 
brave and deserving officers, Major-General Sherman, and Rear- 
Admiral Porter, advanced to the vacancies thus made. But 
while laboring, with ever-watchful care, for the interests of the 
army and the support of the Government in its gigantic efforts 
to suppress the rebellion, Mr. Wilson did not lose sight, for a 
moment, of slavery, to the ultimate extinction of which he had 
consecrated his life more than a quarter of a century before 
slavery revolted against the authority of the nation. In that 
remarkable series of anti-slavery measures which u.ilminated 
in the anti-slavery amendment of the Constitution, he bore no 
undistinguished part. He introduced the bill abolishing slavery 
in the District of Columbia, which became a law on the 16th 
of April, 1862, and by which more than three thousand slaves 
were made forever free, and slavery became forever impossi- 
ble in the nation's capital. He introduced a provision, wliich 
became a law on the 21st of May, 1862, providing that persons 
of color in the District of Columbia should be subject to the 
same laws to which white persons were subject ; that they 
should be tried for offences against the laws in the same man- 
ner as white persons were tried, and, if convicted, be liable to 
the same penalty, and no other, as would be inflicted upon 
white persons for the same crime. On the 12th of July, 1862, 



406 MEIf OF OUR DAY. 

he introduced from the Military Committee the bill, which 
became the law on the 17th, to amend the act of 1795, calling 
for the militia to execute the laws. This bill made negroes a 
part of the militia, authorized the President to receive, into the 
military or naval service, persons of African descent, and made 
free such persons, their mothers, wives, and children, if they 
owed service to any persons who gave aid to the rebellion. 
On the 24th of February, 186-i, he caused the enrolment act to 
be so amended as to make colored men, whether free or slave, 
part of the national forces ; and the masters of slaves were to 
receive the bounty when they should free tneir drafted slaves. 
On the Committee of Conference, Mr. Wilson moved that the 
slave should be made free, not by the act of their masters, but 
by the authority of the Government, the moment they entered 
the service of the United States, and this motion prevailing, 
the act passed in that form. General Palmer reported that in 
Kentucky alone, more than twenty thousand slaves were made 
free by it. He subsequently introduced, and in the face of the 
most persistent opposition carried through, a joint resolution 
making the wives and children of all colored soldiers forever 
free. Six months after the passage of this bill, Major-General 
Palmer reported that, in Kentucky alone, nearly seventy-five 
thousand women and children had received their freedom 
through it. 

Senator Wilson also moved and carried an amendment to the 
army appropriation bill of June 15, 186-1, providing that all 
persons of color who had been or who might be mustered into 
the military service should receive the same uniform, clothing, 
arms, equipments, camp equipage, rations, medical attendance, 
and pay, as other soldiers, from the first day of January, 1861. 

His efforts in behalf of the fifty-fourth and fifty-fifth Massa- 
chusetts colored regiments are well known, and it was due to 



HON. HENRY WILSON. 407 

his persistency, that they received a part of what was their 
just due. The Freedmeu's Bureau bill was originally reported 
by him, and in all the subsequent legislation on that subject, 
he was active and decided in favor of its organization and 
maintenance. He defended with great ability and secured the 
adoption of negro suffrage as a part of the Congressional plan 
of reconstruction, and in both the XXXIXth and XLth 
Congresses, he has maintained fully his old reputation as the 
champion of the oppressed and down trodden. 

This championship is with him no matter of expediency, no 
political trick to gain a cheap popularity. Born in poverty, 
nursed in childhood in the lap of penury, and throughout his 
youth and early manhood accustomed to constant and severe 
manual labor, he has learned, from the stern experiences of his 
own early life, the divine art of sympathy, and has become 
imbued with the doctrine of human brotherhood and love. A. 
man of the people, sprung from the toiling classes, he has pro- 
found faith in them, and commands, as few men can, their earn- 
est and abiding love. 

From boyhood Mr. "Wilson has been strictly temperate and a 
man of irreproachable moral character ; but within the past two 
or three years, he has felt the necessity of a more actively reli- 
gious life, and professing conversion, has united himself with 
the Congregational church at his home. In this, as in all other 
public acts of his life, he has given abundant proof of his 
earnestness and the purity of his motives. He has of late been 
active in organizing a Congressional Temperance society, an 
association of which there Avas much need, and has been using 
his great influence to win members of Congress, who had fallen 
into habits of intoxication, to reformation. He has met with 
fyratifying success in this laudable enterprise. 

Mr. Wilson was a prominent candidate (rather from the 



408 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

urgency of liis friends than from any particular ambition cf liis 
own) for the vice-presidency, in the political campaign of 1868, 
and though eventually Mr. Colfax received the nomination, the 
vote for Mr. Wilson was large, and under other circumstances 
could not have failed to secure him a place on the ticket. It is, 
however, hardly matter of regret to the nation that he should 
have failed of receiving this nomination, for there is not another 
man in the Senate, who could not be spared more readily or 
safely than he. 



HON. JOHN SHERMAN. 



fe^OIIN SHBEMAN, United States Senator from the State 
^1 of Ohio, comes from the distinguished Connecticut 
family of Shermans, which was founded by a refugee 
Eoundhead from Essex, England, who brought with 
him to America, the Puritan politics, courage, and conscience, 
which sent him into the field as soldier on the popular side in 
the Civil Wars. The Senator's father, Charles Eobert Sherman, 
a thoroughly educated lawyer, removed from Connecticut to 
Ohio in 1810, and there became famous first as an advocate, 
and afterwards as a Judge of the Supreme Court. His pro- 
fessional life and judicial service won the success of eminent 
reputation and social regard — his generosity and disinterested- 
ness restricted their profits to the maintenance of his large 
family. When, in 1829, he was stricken upon the bench with 
a mortal disease and died, he left a widow and eleven children, 
the oldest eighteen, the youngest an infant — and he left no 
estate. The boys became somev/hat scattered. William Tecum- 
seh, now General Sherman, became by adoption a member of 
the family of the lion. Thomas Ewing. John went to Mount 
Vernon, Ohio, where he was sent to school, and kept steadily 
and generally under good masters until he was fourteen years 
old. Then he was sent to the Muskingum Improvement, in part 
to earn his own support, in part to learn the business of a civil 

409 



410 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

engineer, and was placed under the care of Colonel Curtis, since 
General Samuel E. Curtis, the resident engineer of the work 
The lad's grade in the corps was junior rodman. lie was em- 
ployed two years on this work — the two most valuable years of 
his education ; for in them he learned the methods and forms of 
business, acquired a habit of working hard and systematically, 
and became self-reliant. When he was sixteen years old and 
innocent of all politics, save a boy's idea that Tom Corwin and 
Tom Ewing were the greatest men in the world, he became the 
victim of politics, and lost his employment. The Ohio elec- 
tion of 1838 brought the Democratic party into power. The 
pernicious doctrine the leaders of that party had established, 
that "to the victors belong the spoils," was applied to the 
Muskingum Improvement. Colonel Curtis was a Whig. He 
w^as turned out in the summer of 1839, and most of his boys 
were turned out with him, to give place to a Democratic 
engineer, and to Democratic boys. Sherman was among the 
discharged. He lost little time in weighing the justice which 
punished him for other people's politics, and not his own, but 
after his divorce from his engineering apprenticeship, set 
himself to thinking how he could accomplish the dream and 
ambition of his young life — a college education. He went to 
his brother, Charles T. Sherman, now United States District 
Judge in Ohio, who was then engaged as a lawyer in Mansfield, 
Ohio. The collegiate education was discussed in domestic 
session of the Ways and Means committee, composed of the two 
brothers, with the family resources all around subject to 
requisition. It could not be accomplished. John had to give 
up the idea of a college course. Furthermore, he l^ad to earn 
his living. It was finally agreed that the best thing to be done 
was for John to fit himself to be a lawyer as soon as he could, 
and while he was reading laiv with Charles, and working in his 



HON. JOHN SHEEMAN. 411 

office as a clerk, to go to scliool to his brother in some sense, 
and study mathematics and the Latin classics under his in- 
struction and direction. The attorney's business of the office 
of course ran over this, the boy's substitute for a college edu- 
cation, but amid his drudgery as a clerk, and his reading of 
elementary books of law, he picked up considerable Latin, and 
read miscellaneously, but, largely of English authors. Ilis four 
years' novitiate expired while he was thus liberally educating 
himself, and he was graduated out of his college by a license to 
practice law, which he obtained on examination the day after 
he was twenty-one years old. He immediately entered into a 
co-partnership with his older brother, which lasted for eleven 
years, and which was active and lucrative for tho^e days and 
the region of Ohio, and in which John earned a solid repu- 
tation as an able, wise, resolute, laborious, honest, and success- 
ful lawyer. John rode the circuits ; Charles managed the busi- 
ness and counselled in the office. 

Like all western lawyers, John Sherman was a politician. 
He was an ultra Whig by organization and education, and of 
course was debarred from office in the Democratic district in 
which he lived. But his talents and character made him the 
representative of the young politicians of the minority party in 
his region, and he had been sent while yet in full practice as a 
lawyer to the Whig National Conventions of 1848 and 1852, 
and in the latter year was chosen a Presidential elector. Up to 
that time he had never ran for an office, and neither had hoped 
for or desired one. But when the Nebraska issue arose in 
1854, like a true statesman he felt the necessity for combining 
all the opposition in the country to the further extension of 
human slavery, and zealously and laboriously worked to 
organize a new party without a name, whose mission was 
to be to check the aggrandisement of the slave power, and 



412 MEN OF OUR DAT. 

preserve the Republican principles and forms of our Govern- 
ment. He accepted a nominaton to Congress in the Xllltb 
Ohio district, and greatly to his surprise, in the general 
political revolution of that year, was elected. The law firm of 
Charles and John Sherman was now dissolved. Charles drifted 
into railway enterprises. John was in the current of politics 
which bore him away forever from his profession. He came 
into the House of Representatives fully equipped for useful 
public service — a fluent debater, with a large knowledge of 
affairs, patient of details, laborious in investigation, with habits 
of hard work, conciliatory in temper, yet persistent in purpose. 
He brought with him the reputation of being sound in judg- 
ment, sincere in purpose, and superior to personal consider- 
ations in the discharge of a public duty. His career was 
rapidly successful. Its prominent events in the first session of 
the XXXIVth Congress were his service as one of the Kansas 
Investigating Committee, and his preparation of the famous 
Report, which the committee presented to the House of Repre- 
sentatives and the people of the country. He bore a large and 
influential part in the debates which followed the report. At 
the close of the session the Republican members of the House, 
chiefly on the persuasion of Mr. Sherman, adopted the amend- 
ment to the Army Bill, denying the validity of the slavery- 
extending laws of Congress. It is almost certain that if the 
Republican party had stood upon that declaration as a plat- 
form, they would have carried the presidential election that 
year. The Republicans in the House agreed to do so, and 
Sherman wrote an address to the people of the United States, 
elaborating the principle contained in that declaration, which 
was signed by all the Republican members, but was not pro- 
mulgated — for Seward and other Senators, under his example 



HON. JOHN SHERMAN. 413 

aud dissuasion, " backed down," and tlie Congress adjourned on 
a Democratic triumpli. 

The XXXV th Congress .was chiefly marked by the long and 
heated contests, over the Lccompton Constitution, the English 
Bill, and the defection of Douglas. In these struggles, John 
Sherman took an active part, and made many and powerful 
speeches. He was also appointed, and served as chairman of 
the Xaval Investigating Committee, which made a most 
damaging exposure of .the administrative complicity of Bucha- 
nan and Toucey, with the crimes and purposes of the slavery 
propagandists. He made, too, a masterly speech upon the 
public expenditures, which was widely circulated as a cam- 
paign document. 

The XXXYIth Congress opened in the House, with the mem- 
orable contest for speaker, in which John Sherman was the can- 
didate of the Eepublicans. On Mr. Pennington's election, he 
was made chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, and 
by virtue of that office, the leader of the House of Eepresentatives. 
He crowned his great and varied labors on this Committee, by 
putting through the House the beneficent measure on which, 
more than on any other, the material prosperity of the coun- 
try rests — the so-called Morrill Tariff. In his best speech of 
that Congress, delivered in reply to Pendleton in February 
1861, he was prophetic in his appreciation of the influences that 
divided parties, and the result of the conflict which the South 
was hastening with such arrogant confidence ; he declared that 
war was inevitable, that slavery would be destroyed, that the 
North would triumph. 

Mr. Sherman was elected to the XXXYIIth Congress as a 
member of the House, but on the resignation by Mr. Chase of his 
seat in the United States Senate, was chosen, by the Legislature 
of Ohio, to represent that State in that body. He was put upon 



■ii-i MEN OF OUR DAY. 

the F'i nance Committee, made by tlie war the most important 
in the organization of the Senate. He introduced the National 
Bank Bill, and had charge of that almost vital measure, as well 
as of the Legal Tender Acts, on the floor and in the debates. 
Among his speeches in this Congress, those which commanded 
general attention, and were of decisive influence, were the one 
against the continuance of the State banking system, delivered 
in January 1863, and the one in favor of the national banks 
soon after. He also spoke powerfully against slavery in the 
District of Columbia, and took part in every important debate 
upon subjects growing out of and connected with the war, and 
always on the right side. But his labors were chiefly confined 
to finance and taxation — to providing money and maintaining 
credit to carry on the war. 

In the first session of the XXXIXth Congress Mr. Sherman 
principally devoted himself to the reduction of the taxes. He 
also introduced into the Senate the bill to fund the public indebt- 
edness, which, if passed as reported, would, as Jay Cooke has 
borne witness, have been followed by the beneficial results of the 
saving of about $20,000,000 of interest per annum, the wider dis- 
semination of the loan among the masses, and the removal of the 
debt from its present injurious competition with railroa^, nier- 
cantile, mining, manufacturing, and all the other vital interests 
of the country. Had the bill been passed as reported, the 
larger portion of the indebtedness of the United States would 
now have been funded into a five per cent, loan, and the 
Treasury and the banks could, in the judgment of the most 
sagacious financiers in the country, have resumed specie pay- 
ments by the 1st of July, 1867. Most unfortunately for the 
public interests, the bill was mutilated in the Senate and 
defeated in the House. Mr. Sherman, in his funding scheme, 
and in the speech with which he supported it, completely antici 



HON. JOHN SHERMAN. 415 

pated, and would certaiulj have avoided the perils and ques- 
tions that now threaten the national credit. In this session 
he also opposed strenuously the bill to contract the currency, 
which has since exercised so mischievous an influence upon 
the business of the country, and the effect of which he clearly 
foresaw and pointed out, both on the floor of the Senate and 
in the committee room. Upon these questions, the funding 
of the public debt, and the contraction of the currency, 
Mr, Sherman differed so much from Mr. Fessenden who was 
chairman of the Committee on Finance, that subsequent co- 
operation between them became impossible. In the second ses- 
sion of this Congress, Mr. Sherman spoke and labored in favor 
of a revised tariff". A patriotic attempt had been made to 
graduate the duties on foreign goods, so as to equalize the 
cost of production here and abroad, reference being had to 
the difference between wages, cost of living, and interest on 
money, — a patriotic attempt to secure to American working 
men and women the possession of the American market. Not 
only in the XXXIXth Congress, but in all the Congresses 
of which he was a member, John Sherman spoke and voted 
for the industry of his country. The nation is indebted to 
him, also, for the substitute for the Eeconstruction Bill, which 
he introduced in the second session of the XXXIXth Con- 
gress, and which finally became a law. 

The XLth Congress was principally occupied with Eeconstruc- 
tion and the contest between the legislative and executive 
branches of the Government, which Andrew Johnson forced 
and pushed to an issue whose only solution was his impeach- 
ment and removal from office. Mr. Sherman was chairman of 
the Senate Finance Committee and, by virtue of the pre-eminent 
importance of that post, the leader of the Senate. In the second 
session he reported a new bill for funding the national debt and 



416 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

converting the notes of tlie United States — a measure of the 
greatest consequence. The bill authorized ; 

1. The sale of 10-40 five per cent, bonds to redeem all out* 
standinof debts. 

O 

2. It exempted these bonds from State taxation. 

3. It provided for the payment of one per cent, annually of 
the public debt. 

4. It offered to the holders of the 5-20s the option to exchange 
them for 10-40s at par. 

5. It authorized the conversion of legal tenders into bonds, 
and bonds into legal tenders. 

6. It authorized contracts payable in gold. 

The proposed measure was received with favor as being just, 
wise and necessa y, by a large portion of the people. It was 
attacked as a violation of the pledged faith of the Government, 
and a step towards repudiation, by a class of capitalists and 
financiers in some of the large cities, Mr. Sherman, in his mas- 
terly speech in support of the bill, delivered on the 27th of 
February 1868, made the following points : 

By reducing the rate of interest from six to five per cent., 
without increasin<^ the volume of greenbacks, we can save to 
the people of the United States seventeen millions of dollars in 
gold annually, and neither derange the currency, disorder the 
money market, nor depreciate our credit : — 

Equity and law will be fully satisfied by the redemption of 
the 5-20 bonds, in the same kind of money received for them, 
and of the same intrinsic value it bore, when the bonds were 
issued : — 

Every citizen of the United States has conformed his busi- 
ness to the law which made greenbacks a legal tender. He has 
collected and paid his debts according to it. And every State 
in the Union, without exception, has, since the legal tender act 



HON. JOHN 3UERMAN. 417 

was passed, made its contracts in currency and paid tliciii in 
carrency : — 

The wide discriaiination now made between the bondholder 
and the notehokler, gives rise to popular chimor and is the 
cause of great and just complaint: — 

No privilege should be granted to the bondholder that is not 
granted to the noteholder. Both the bond and the note are 
public securities, and both equally appeal to the public faith: — 

No privilege should be given to the bondholder unless it is 
compensated for by some advantage reserved to the Govern- 
ment : — 

The whole public debt should be made to assume such form 
that it may be a part of the circulating capital of the country, 
bearing as low a rate of interest as is practicable, and having 
only such exemptions as will maintain it at par with gold: — 

This funding process will give increased value to the United 
States notes — under it both notes and bonds will gradually 
rise, step by step, until they reach the standard of gold — the 
provision indeed is the most rapid way to specie payment. 

Mr. Sherman in this speech also drew from British and 
American history five striking precedents to r~3commend and 
sanction the measure he had reported from the Finance Com- 
mittee. The rate of interest on portions, or the whole of the 
public debt of England, was reduced b}^ act of Parliament in 
1715 from 6 per cent, to 5 per cent. — in 1725 from 5 per cerit. 
to 4 per cent. — in»1749 from 4 per cent, to o| per cent., and sub- 
sequently, by the same act, to 3; and in 1822 from 5 per cent. 
on exchequer navy bills to a 4 per cent, annuity. Alexander 
Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury of the United 
States, funded, by authority of Congress, the combined public 
debt of the nation and the revolutionary war debts of the 

several States, by offering the fundholders 6 per cent, bonds 

27 



418 MEN' OF OUR DAY. 

fur two tliirds of their debt, 3 per cent, bonds for tlie other 
third, and by giving public lands for some of it, and annuities 
for some. The bondholders and government creditors who 
would not accept this offer, got but 4 per cent, interest on the 
debt they held, 2 per cent, less than they were entitled to 
umler the law creating the debt. The nation at the time sus- 
tained the arrangement as reasonable, fair, and for the best. 

Mr. Sherman closed his speech on his Funding Bill with these 
noteworthy words : 

"I say the plan now proposed by the Committee on Finance is 
in accordance with precedents, holds out no threats, deals with 
all a 'ike, holders of five-twenty bonds, greenbacks, and all. 
It gives them a i^roposition to fund their debt at their own 
option by the 1st of November next, or if they will not choose 
to do it, then, as a matter of course, the question is to be 
decided at the next session of Congress, what provision ought 
to be made, Avhether or not Congress will redeem the five-twenty 
bonds in the currency in Avhich they were contracted or post- 
pone its redemption, paying the interest at six per cent, in gold, 
until we can redeem the principal in gold. 

" If this offer is rejected, I will not hesitate to vote to redeem 
maturity bonds in the currency in existence when they were issued 
and luith which they were 2^'ii^chased, carefully complying, however 
with all the p)^ovisions of laiv as to the mode of payment, and as to 
the amount of currency outstanding^ 

And so will say the majority of the people of the United 
States. 

John Sherman is very tall, erect, exceedingly spare, brown- 
haired, gray-eyed, has a large head, high and square in front, 
has firm square jaws, a large mouth with thin lips expressing 
in an uncommon degree decision, firmness, and self-control, but 
betraying his emotional nature, which is tender and sympathetic. 
He speaks without effort, without hesitation, with great rapidity, 



HON. JOHN SHERMAN. 419 

wholly free from effort at display, and without a single trick of 
oratory or any self-conscious mannerism. 

In debate he is greatly animated, and shoots his statements 
and reasoning straight at his mark. He commands the un- 
divided attention of the Senate when he speaks, and his words 
always carry weight, and generally produce conviction. His 
life is pure ; his personal and political history are without spot 
or blemish. 



HON. LYMAN TRUMBULL, 

UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM ILLINOIS. 




9^ 

]inLE the Western States, or rather those of the Missis- 
sippi valley, have usually sent men to the Senate who 
were educated to the legal profession, it has generally 
been the case that they were those to whom the law had 
been, for the most part, a stepping-stone to political prefer- 
ment, rather than men profoundly versed in the higher prin- 
ciples of law, men of judicial mind, and those who had for years 
presided with dignity and ability over the highest courts. Illi- 
nois is one of the few exceptions to this general rule. Judge 
Trumbull, one of her Senators, had a wide reputation as a jurist 
for years before he was chosen to a place in the Senate. 

Lyman Trumbull was born in Colchester, (Connecticut, Oc- 
tober 12, 1813. He is of an excellent lineage, being from one 
of the collateral branches of a family which has given three 
governors to Connecticut, one of them the " Brother Jonathan" 
of the Eevolution, and has had its full share of eminent men in 
all departments of public life. Colchester, Mr. Trumbull's 
birthplace, has been, for more than half a century, famous for 
the excellence of its academy, within whose walls hundreds, if 
not thousands, of distinguished men have received their early 
education. Ilore Mr. Trumbull acquired his English and classi- 
cal training, and about the year 1834 went to Georgia, and en- 
gaged in teaching, meanwhile studying law. He was admitted 
420 



HON. LYMAN TRUMBULL. 421 

to the bar in Georgia, we believe, in 1836, and soon after re- 
moved to Illinois. A close and eager student of his profession, 
he soon began to attract notice, and found himself in possession 
of a large and growing practice in the young and thiiving city 
of Chicago. In 1840, he -was sent to the State Legislature, and, 
in 1841 and 1842, was elected Secretary of State. But local 
politics were not to his taste, and for the six years following he 
devoted himself with the utmost assiduity to his profession, in 
which his extensive attainments, and the calm, comprehensive 
view which he took of his cases, perceiving and meeting before- 
hand the points which his opponents would make, had given 
him a high rank. In 1848, he was chosen justice of the Su- 
preme Court of Illinois, and presided in that court, with cxtra- 
oruinaiy ability, for five years. 

At the election, in November, 1854, Judge Trumbull Avas 
elected a Representative in Congress from the first Congressional 
district (Cook county) to the XXXIVth Congress. At the 
assembling of the Legislature in the following January, the Re- 
publicans, who were in a majority in both branches of the 
Legislature, were to elect a United States Senator in place of 
General James Shields, whose term expired on the 4tli of March 
ensuing. Two candidates seemed to have a nearly equal follow- 
ing, viz. : Abraham Lincoln, of Springfield, and Lyman Trum- 
bull, of Chicago. The State had been revolutionized and car- 
ried for the Republican party through Mr. Lincoln's influence ; 
but preferring the triumph of his principles to a personal vic- 
tory, he magnanimously withdrew from the canvass, and brought 
his friends to support Judge Trumbull. The judge took his 
seat in the Senate in December, 1855, and so fully satisfied were 
the people with his conduct, that he was re-elected in 1861, and 
again in 1867. 

Senator Trumbull is of a somewhat cold temperament, and 



422 ME2f OF OUR DAY. 

though from conviction a Republican, he was conservative in 
his tendencies. In the last session of the XXXVIth Congress 
— December, 1860, to March, 1861 — he opposed secession with 
decision and firmness, yet advocated conciliation ; and though 
he did not believe the Constitution needed amending, he was 
ready to vote for a convention to consider amendments. For- 
tunately for the cause of freedom, and unquestionably controlled 
in this by him who causes " the wrath of man to praise him," 
the southern leaders were not to be coaxed or soothed. They 
were determined on war, believing that through it they should 
obtain the complete ascendancy ; and, as one of them said, they 
would not have staid in the Union if they could have had carte 
blanche to dictate their own terms. 

The temporary weakness which had caused the knees of some 
of the Republicans to smite together, and made them willing to 
accede to what would have been disgraceful compromises, passed 
away, and when the shock came, and war was actually begun, 
they stood shoulder to shoulder, and wondered at their own 
firmness. Mr. Trumbull had never been particularly timid, but 
his whole feelings were averse to war, and he had hoped to pre- 
vent it. Yet when it came, he was firm and true. In the new 
Senate, he was chairman of the Judiciary Committee, of which 
he had been, from his entrance into the Senate, a member, and 
he acted with judgment and promptness in bringing forward 
such measures as the occasion demanded. On the 2-l.th of July, 
1861, Mr. Trumbull moved, as an amendment to the confisca- 
tion bil], then under consideration, a provision " that whenever 
any person, claiming to be entitled to the service or labor of any 
other person, under the laws of any State, shall employ said 
person in aiding or promoting any insurrection, or in resisting 
the laws of the United States, or shall permit him to be so era- 
ployed, he shall forfeit all right to such service or labor, and the 



HON. LYMAN TRUMBULL. 423 

person wliose labor or service is tlius claimed, shall be tlicnce- 
fortli discharged therefrom, any law to the contrary notwith- 
standing." This amendment and the confiscation act passed the 
Senate, bnt was opposed in the Ilouse, and after long discussion, 
a substitute for it, proposed by Mr. Bingham, embodying tlie 
same principle, but more definite in its details, was passed. 
When this was returned to tbe Senate, Mr. Trumbull moved a 
concurrence with the Ilouse, and the amended bill was then 
passed. This Avas, for the time, a bold move on the part of Isir. 
Trumbull, though sucli has been the progress of opinion since 
that time, that it seems very weak and timid to us. 

As the war progressed, his faith, like that of most of his 
party, in the eventful triumph of universal freedom, grew 
stronger ; and, throughout the war, he was found in the front 
rank, with Sumner and Wilson and Wade and Harlan, in the 
development and advocacy of measures looking to the over- 
throw of slavery, and the protection of the wards of the nation. 
He advocated and defended the Emancipation Proclamation, 
sustained the act suspending the habeas corpus, reported the 
thirteenth amendment to the Constitution in the form in Avliich 
it finally passed, (abolishing slavery throughout the Union,) 
defended the first Freedmen's Bureau bill, and attached to it an 
amendment providing for permanent confiscation of rebel pro- 
perty; drew up, or materially modified, the second and third 
Freedmen's Bureau bills, matured and presented the Civil Rights 
bill, and devoted much labor and time to the perfecting and 
advocacy of the reconstruction acts. 

It is sad to have to record, amid so many praiseworthy acts, 
one which cannot be commended; but, as impartial historians, 
we must say that "Mr. Trumbull's course, in regard to the trial 
of the President on the articles of impeachment, presented by 
the House of Representatives, surprised and grieved all hia 



424 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

friends. His conversation, before and at tlie commencement of 
the impeachment trial, had been such as to convince all his 
acquaintances that he was in favor of the conviction of the 
President. The evidence and arguments presented were such 
as to satisfy men who were fully his peers in legal learning and 
judicial ability; but his vote against impeachment might have 
been deemed only an error of judgment, the result of an over- 
nice hesitation on some law points, but for his conduct in regard 
to it. His colleague (Senator Yates) and his fellow Senators 
had received from him no hint of his intended opposition, and 
were led to suppose, from his outgivings, that he was sure for 
conviction, while the President himself, two days before the 
decision, informed other persons how he would vote, and declared 
that he spoke from positive knowledge; and it subsequently 
tianspired that he had been for many days engaged in preparing 
a defence of his course, which, while carefully and elaborately 
worded, was such a jDiece of sophistry and special pleading as he 
would have severely rebuked, if it had been offered by any 
member of the bar, when he presided on the bench. The mo- 
tives which led a man so highly esteemed and fully confided in 
by the Eepublican party to disappoint so cruelly their hopes, it 
js not for us to scan. We only know that, by this act, he has 
alienated the affections of those who have hitherto delighted to 
do 1 im honor. 



HON. SAMUEL C. POMEROY, 

U. S. SENATOR FROM KANSAS. 



^'^Kt ISITORS to tlic galleries of the United States Senate uro 
v},1 I almost always attracted by the genial and healthful, yet 

\^ intellectual face and portly, massive form of one of the 
@ Senators, a man on whose broad brow the cares of more 
than fifty years sit gently, and whose eye lights up with humor, 
pathos, or stern resolution, as the debate in the Senate goes on. 
His hair and beard are slightl}' flecked with gray, but the 
broad shoulders, the robust, manly form, and the impression he 
gives of strength and repose, mark him as good for two score 
years or more, at least, of service in the republic. Yet this 
genial, healthy-looking Senator, has passed through more vicis- 
situdes, been exposed to more perils and dangers, and has led 
for years a life of more constant and harassing anxiety than 
any other man in the Senate. He is the Senator from Kansas 
(avc had almost said the only one, since his colleague has pioved 
so unworthy of confidence), and, more than this, he is the 
founder of that young and gallant State. 

Samuel C. Pomeroy was born in Southampton, Massachu- 
setts, January 3d, 1816. He is the seventh child of Samuel 
Pomeroy. His early education was obtained in the public 
schools of Southampton, and he fitted for college at Greenfield 
and Shelburne academies. He entered Amherst college, but, 
after spending some time there, left without graduating, and 

425 



426 MEN OF OUR DAT. 

entered upon a mercantile partnership, with a Mr. Bissell, in 
Onondaga county, New York. This partnership was not of 
long continuance, and Mr. Pomeroy removed, prior to 18-iO, to 
South Butler, Wayne county, New York. 

At South Butler, Mr. Pomeroy found his vocation. It was 
in the year 1840, that Alvan Stewart, one of the most eloquent 
apostles of the anti-slavery cause, William Goodell, Frederick 
Douglass, Samuel E. Ward, Henry Highland Garnet, and a few 
others, set about the organization of a political anti-slavery 
party, in the Northern States. Stewart lectured at South Butler, 
and Pomeroy, then a young man of twenty-four, became a 
convert to the faith, which he proceeded to exemplify by his 
works. He issued a call for a county Liberty -party Convention, 
to be held at Lyons, the county seat. On the day appointed, 
Mr. Pomeroy drove to Lyons, a distance of twenty miles, in his 
own wagon, and, on arriving, found an audience of two persons 
beside himself, a Mr. Snow and a livery-stable keeper. After 
waiting an hour for other delegates to come in, and none ap- 
pearing, Mr. Pomeroy called the meeting to order, Mr. Snow 
taking the chair, the livery-stable man acting as secretary, and 
Mr. Pomeroy delivering the speech. Kesolutions were then 
adopted, and a county ticket nominated, which at the ensuing 
election received eleven votes, in a population of twenty thou- 
sand souls. But these eleven felt, as Alvan Stewart said, in one 
of his speeches: "Twenty years hence, it will be glor}'- enough 
for any man to say, ' I was right on this question in 1840.' " 

Six years later, the Wayne county Liberty-party ticket car- 
ried the election. Meantime, however, Mr. Pomeroy, who had 
lost his young wife and child, had been recalled to the old 
homestead, in Southampton, in 1842, where his aged parents 
needed his care. Here, while diligent in business, he was an 
active propagandist of his anti-slavery priivjip^es. Year by 



HON. SAMUEL C. TOMEROY. 427 

year lie gained ground, and brought over new converts to the 
fiiith — and, in 18-i-i, he became the candidate of the Liberty 
party for a seat in the JMassachusetts Legislature. For eight years 
the conflict continued, and each year the vote increased, till, in 
the autumn of 1852, he was elected. That Legislature put 
George S. Boutwell into the governor's chair, and sent Plenry 
Wilson to the United States Senate. The friends of freedom 
were encouraged, and felt that the day of compromises was 
ended. It Avas amid this excitement in Massachusetts, this 
moral earthquake which overthrew the conservatism which had 
for years ruled the State, that the General Government arrested 
and remanded to slavery, Anthony Burns, a man of color, in the 
city of Boston, The occasion fired the heart of the earnest 
Pomeroy, and he gave utterance to those burning Avords, which 
roused the people of Massachusetts, as one man, to oppose 
slavery to the death, 

" Sir," said he, addressing the speaker, " when you have 
another man to enslave, do it as you did before, in the gray of 
the early morning ; don't let in the light of the brighter day upon 
the scene, for the sun would blush, if you did not, and turn his 
face away to weep. "What ! return a man to hopeless slavery ! — 
to a condition darker than death, and more damning than perdi- 
tion ! Death and the grave are not without their hope ; light 
from the hill tops of immortality crosses their darkness and bids 
the sleepers wake, and live, and hope ; and perdition with its 
unyielding grasp has no claims upon a man's posterity. But 
remorseless slavery swallows up not the man alone, but his 
hapless offspring through unending generations, forever and 
forevermore !" 

Then came the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill by 
Congress, after a long and fierce debate. This quickened the 
pulse of the North to fever heat. They had borne, though not 



428 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

without great indignation, the enormities of the Fugutive Slave 
law, but to see the Missouri Compromise repealed, and this 
broad, fertile territory given over to slavery, was more than 
they could endure. Tlie cry of " no more slave territory" was 
raised, and swept over the land with the swiftness of the whirl- 
wind. In this great movement, Mr. Pomeroy took, from the 
first, an active part. About the time of the passage of the bill, 
he was in Washington, and his call upon the President happened 
to be at the very hour of his signing it ; in fact, the ink with 
which a faithless President had signed an infamous act, \\'as not 
yet dry upon the parchment. " Sir !" said Mr. Pomeroy to the 
President, "this measure which has passed, is not the ii'in:n!)h 
you suppose ; it does not end, but only commences hostilities. 
Slavery is victorious in Congress, but it has not yet triumphed 
among the people. Your victory is but an adjournment of the 
question from the halls of legislation at "Washington to the 
open prairies of the freedom-loving West ; and there^ sir, we shall 
beat you, depend upon it." 

The South, secure in their possession of the President, and 
their majority in Congress, had resolved, by fraud and force, to 
obtain possession of Kansas, and make it a slave State. The 
North, and especially New England, took up the gauntlet thus 
thrown down by the South, and determined to make it a free 
State. Eli Thayer had started the project of organized emi- 
gration, procured a charter from the Massachussetts Legislature, 
and under it, organized the " New England Emigrant Aid 
Company," of Boston. 

Of this company, Mr. Pomeroy immediately became the 
agent, accepting the arduous and responsible duty of financial, 
as well as that of general agent. The pressing want felt by 
everybody, from the first, was information about the new 
territory. To this the Emigrant Aid Company addressed itself 



HON. SAMUEL C, POMEROY. 429 

■\vithoat delay, collecting and scattering broadcast items of 
ncAvs about Kansas, its history, soil, climate, distance, routes by 
which to reach it, time required, expense, etc., etc., besides 
procuring tickets in quantity, at reduced rates, for emigrants. In 
all this, Pomeroy took an active part, distributing pamphlets, 
lecturing everywhere, and by word and deed stimulating all 
who could, to make the sacrifice, and start for Kansas. In this 
way, recruits for freedom were soon enlisted, and Pomeroy 
undertook to be their Moses to the promised land. It is not 
every man who could assume responsibilities of this kind, 
situated as he then was, or who would feel it to be his duty to 
do so. After the death of his first wife, Mr. Pomeroy had re- 
mained a widower for some years, but finally married again. 
At the time of wliich we write, this wife lay ill upon a bed to 
which she had been confined for two years. To think of 
parting, under such circumstances, was indeed a trial. But if 
the Christian faith which impelled him to the sacrifice was 
heroic, not less admirable was the spirit of his suft'eiing wife. 
She not only counseled, but urged him to go, feeling that in 
this way, she, in hen feebleness and waiting, might also by the 
sacrifice be made a participant in his noble deeds ; as Milton 
finely expresses it : — 

"Those also serve who only stand and -wait." 

On the 27th of August, 1854, the first company of Kansas 
emigrants, under the load of Mr. Pomeroy, left Boston for their 
far-distant prairie home. They were nearly a week on their 
journey; at various points of which, they were welcomed by 
the friends of the enterprise, and at Eochester were formally 
presented with a Bible and spelling book, as the symbols of New 
England liberty. They pitched their tents at the point where 
the city of Lawrence now stands, and Mr. Pomeroy commenced 



430 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

the erection of a steam saw-mill. A second colony came soon 
after, and were guided by Mr. Pomeroy to Topeka. 

Meantime, Governor A. H. Eeeder bad been appointed, by 
President Pierce, cbief magistrate of the territory, and bad 
arrived at Lawrence, wbere be was welcomed by Mr. Pomeroy 
on bebalf of tbe colonists. Governor Eeeder proved a friend 
10 tbe colonists, altbougb be periled bis life in doing so, for 
Jefferson Davis, Pierce's principal adviser, pursued tbe Kansas 
emigrants and tbeir friends witb tbe same malignant bate 
wbicb'be manifested toward tbe Nortb during tbe late war. 

Througb the influence of this man's infamous counsels, 

numerous bauds of armed ruffians were sent from tbe Soutb to 

tbe borders of Kansas, in Missouri and Arkansas; and by frauds, 

murders, robberies, and a general system of terrorism, sougbt 

to tbrust a slave constitution upon tbe new State. Governor 

Gearv, Governor Eeeder's successor, became, like him, a convert 

to tbe principles of tbe emigrants. He too was, therefore, 

superseded, and Eobert J. Walker appointed ; but even be did 

not prove so supple a tool as tbe southerners hoped. Tbey, 

however, shot tbe settlers, outraged tbe women, burned tbeir 

bouses, and plundered tbeir property, sacked tbe flourishing 

town of Lawrence, and sougbt to make this blooming territory 

a desert. 

Mr. Pomeroy, as tbe leader of tbe Kansas emigrants, was 

subjected to great trials and dangers, during the year 1856, from 
these border-ruffians. Beaten, arrested, and twice imprisoned, 
tliioatencd with death, and senteaced by a mob to be bung, he 
escaped through all, because Providence bad still other work for 
him to do. He found it necessary to arm tbe settlers, that tbey 
miudit defend themselves against tbe ruffians, who feared nothing 
so much as a loaded Sharps' rifle. Thus armed, tbey put to 
flight the armies of tbe border-ruffians, and with tbe close of 



HON. SAMUEL C. POMEKOY, 431 

the year 1856, they had so far dispersed their foes, that there 
was little more occasion to fear the irruption of brute force. But 
the tactics were changed under Mr. Buclianan. What force had 
foiled to efiect, it was hoped might be accomplished by political 
management. Here, however, they were destined »to another 
defeat. Pomeroy had fixed his eye upon Atchison, a border- 
ruffian town, above Leavenworth, and was determined to trans- 
form it into a citadel of freedom. He bought a part of the 
town and the ferry, purchased the newspaper, the Squatter Sove- 
reign^ which a ruffian, of the name of Stringfellow, had esta- 
blished, and made it a free State paper, and stumped the State 
against the Lecompton Constitution. The frauds, by which it 
was attempted to force that document upon the people, were too 
stupendous and glaring to be concealed, and it was defeated 
even in a Democratic Consfress. 

]\Ir. Pomeroy was elected, in 1859, mayor of Atchison, and 
the next year re-elected. In 1860, Kansas was visited by a 
terrible famine, and General Pomeroy, as he was now called, 
was called on to undertake the relief of the people. He came at 
once to their rescue, organized town committees in every town, 
and distributed relief to the amount of more than a million 
of dollars, so wisely and justly, that the people all regarded him 
as their benefactor. His political enemies called him Seed Corn 
(S. C.) Pomeroy, from the quantity of seed wheat and corn he 
distributed to the farmers of the State ; but the people were 
content to plant this seed corn in the fertile soil of the United 
States Senate, and accordingly sent him thither, from March 
1861 to March 1867, and in the latter year re-elected him for 
six years more. 

In the Senate Mr. Pomeroy's course has always been brave, 
manly, and consistent. He is a radical in the best sense of 
that word, and may always be found on the right side of every 



432 MEN" OF OUR DAY. 

great moral question. Twelve d^ys after taking bis seat in the 
Senate, viz., on the 16th of July, 1861, he electrified ihe Senate 
and astonished the border States men and northern Democrats, 
by oflering a " Bill to suppress the Slaveholders' Rebellion."' 
This was tke first time this phrase had ever been applied to 
the war, and great was the wrath of the defenders of slavery; 
but the Senator from Kansas had comprehended the whole 
question in a word, and he was too brave and plucky to be 
alarmed by their outcries. He defended the phrase and de- 
monstrated its appropriateness so forcibly, that it has stuck 
from that day to this. The death of General Lyon, who had 
been his particular friend, drew from him a most eloquent and 
touching eulogy, in the course of which he paid a deserved 
tribute to the bravery and tenacity of the Kansas troops under 
Lyon. 

On a resolution respecting the jail of the District of Columbia, 
Mr. Pomeroy made a speech, in which he demonstrated most 
conclusively, that slavery had no legal status in the District. 
He objected to pay the masters, even when loyal, for their 
slaves liberated, under the act for emancipating slaves in the 
District of Columbia, but proposed a system of accounting, by 
which the slave should be credited with his labor against the 
master's advances. He has ever been watchful on all questions 
involving slavery, or the condition of freedmcn ; hn? advocated, 
earnestly and eloquently, the homestead act, both on account of j 
its own intrinsic justice, and because it was the best safeguard 
against slavery in the territories; insisted on justice being done 
to the colored troops, and on all the great questions which have 
come before the Senate, during the past seven years, his views 
liave been those of the statesman and philanthropist. 

An intimate friend says of him : " True to principle, true to 
his convictions, true to his country, and terribly true to his 



HON. SAMUEfi C. POMEROY. 433 

country's foes, he occupies to-da^^, as Senator of the United States, 
a proud position among his peers — a position that honors both 
representative and the represented. As a patriot, he is earnest ; 
as a statesman, logical ; as a politician, consistent ; and as a 
man, genial, generous, and just. Always self-possessed, and 
always patient, no man ever yet found him in a hurry ^ or ever 
caught him save ' on time.' His hand is never closed except in 
friendship ; and the latchstring of his heart is always hanjing 
out ! Proudly and truly may he exclaim, (in reference to his 
consistent course on the subject of slavery,) and upon his tomb- 
stone, let it be written — 

' I WAS RIGHT ON THIS QUESTION IN 1840 I' " 
28 



CORNELIUS COLE. 




'OENELIUS COLE was born in Seneca county, New- 
York, September 17th, 1822. His grand-parents pene- 
trated the wilderness of western New York in the year 
1800, when his father, David Cole, was but twelve years 
of age, and his mother, Eachel Townsend, but ten. His mother 
was a native of Dutchess county, and his father of the State of 
New Jersey. Early in life he was afforded such reasonable 
educational facilities as thrifty farmers in New York afford 
their sons, but manifested no unusual aptness for learning, 
unless it was for mathematics. He was scarcely yet seventeen 
years old, when a practical surveyor moved in the neighborhood 
of his father, and proposed to instruct some of the boj's in his 
art. Flint's Treatise on Surveying was procured, and in eigh- 
teen days young Cole, without assistance, went through it, 
working out every problem, and making a copy of each in a 
book prepared for the purpose. 

In the following spring, the instructor having died, the sub- 
ject of this sketch entered into practice as his successor, execut- 
ing surveys in the country about. 

It was after this that he began in earnest his preparations for 
college, first in the Ovid academy, and afterward at the Genesee 
"Wesleyan seminary. He spent one year at Geneva college, but 
the balance of his collegiate course was passed at the Wesleyan 



CORNELIUS COLE. 435 

university, in Connecticut, where be was graduated in the full 
coarse in 1847. 

After a little respite, he entered upon tlic study of law, at 
Auburn, New York, and was admitted to practice in the Supreme 
Court of that State, at Oswego, on the 1st of May, 1848. 

After so many years of close application to study, recreation 
was necessary, and an opportunity for it was presented by the 
discovery of gold in California. On the 12th of February, 
1849, he, in company with a few friends, left his native town 
for a journey across the continent. On the 24th of April, the 
party, consisting of seven persons, crossed the frontier of Mis- 
souri, and entered upon the open plains. 

At Fort Laramie the wagons of the company were abandoned, 
and the rest of the journey was made with pack and saddle 
animals alone. Arriving at Sacramento city, then called the 
Emharcadero^ on the 24th of July, after a few days of rest, he 
resorted to the gold mines in El Dorado county, and worked 
with good success till winter, often washing out over a hundred 
dollars a day. When the rainy season set in, he first visited 
San Francisco, and in the following spring began the practice 
of the law there. 

"While absent in the Atlantic States, in 1851, two most de- 
fitructive fires visited that city, and he returned to find himself 
without so much as a law book, or paper ujDon which to write 
a complaint. He visited some friends at Sacramento, and unex- 
pectedly becoming engaged in law business, opened an office 
there. Though he had been active in the political campaign in 
New York, in 1848, on the Free-soil side, he took little or no 
part in politics in California, beyond freely expressing his anti- 
elavery opinions, until his law business became entangled in it, 
in this way : — Certain negroes had been brought out from Mis- 
Bissippi, and having earned much money for their masters, were 



436 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

discharged with their freedom. Afterwards they were seized 
by some ruffians, with the purpose of taking them back to 
slavery. Cole unhesitatingly undertook their defence, and thus 
brought down upon himself the hostility, not only of the 
claimants, but of all their sympathizers, from the highest officers 
of the State, down to the lowest dregs of society. California 
was at that time as much subject to the slave power, as any 
portion of the Union. 

About this period, he was united in marriage to a young lady 
of many accomplishments, — Miss Olive Colegrove, who came 
from New York, and met him at San Francisco, by appoint- 
ment. 

He contended vigorously with the elements of opposition in 
politics, which were carried into his profession, till 1856, when 
the Presidential campaign opening, he was urged by the Fremont 
party, to edit the "Sacramento Daily Times," the organ of the 
Eepublicans for the State. The paper was conducted to the 
entire satisfaction of the party, and at the same time commanded 
the respect of the Democrats and Know-nothings. After the 
election, its publication wa^ suspended, Mr. Cole being compelled 
to return to his profession for the support of his family. 

During the following four years, he was the California mem- 
ber of the Republican National Committee, and an active mem- 
ber of every convention of his party, always taking strong 
ground against both the Breckinridge and Douglas wings of the 
opposition, and never consenting to any party affiliation with 
either. 

In 1859, he was elected district attorney for the city and 
county of Sacramento, being about the only Republican elected 
to any office in California that year. 

His administration of that office, during the two years for 
'A'hich he was elected, was in the higest degree satisfactory to 



C0RXELIU3 COLE. 437 

the people, and the subject of frequent favorable comment bj 
the profession. 

In 1862, he visited the theatre of the war, but before his re- 
turn to the Pacific, had been named for Congress, and the 
following year was elected, receiving 6-i,985 votes. In the 
XXXVIIIth Congress, he was eminently successful in securing 
results beneficial to the States of the Pacific slope. lie was a 
member of the committee on the Pacific railroad, and of the 
committee on Post-offices and Post-roads. As a member of the 
latter committee he origintated the project for the mail steam- 
ship service, between San Francisco and the East Indies, known 
as the China mail line. The success of this great measure is 
attributable to his exertions. His speech upon the subject was 
concise and at the same time compreh^sive and convincing. 

We quote a few lines from it . 

" The Chinese and Japanese alike are remarkable for their 
ingenuity and industry, both of which contribute to the value 
and extent of their productions. They have little of the dash 
and none of the recklessness of Americans, but possess in an 
eminent degree many of the more sober and solid virtues of our 
race. Their commerce is worth untold millions. It is the 
richest prize ever placed before a nation. It is within our 
reach, and the question to be determined is, have we the 
wisdom to grasp it ? 

" Tlie people of America should not fall behind the monarch- 
ies of the old world in taking hold of these powerful agencies 
of Avealth and civilization. This project is next in grandeur 
to that which makes our country free. It will bring San Fran- 
cisco in close neighborhood with the East Indies; and when 
the Pacific railway is completed. New York and the eastern 
coast will be but little further away. Then these two great 
sister cities of America, the one sitting on the Atlantic looking 
eastward, and the other on the Pacific looking west, will 
control the commerce of the globe. Then ancient civilizations 



438 ilEX OF OUR DAY. 

will succumb to the moderu, monarcliy to republicauism, and 
the old world to the new." 

His speech, in favor of establishing a Mining Department at 
Washington, is likewise replete with sound arguments and sta- 
tistics. 

In February, 1864, when our armies were in their most de- 
pressed condition, he made a very effective speech in favor of 
arming the slaves. 

A passage or two, selected without care, will show its tenor : 

" The people have not yet fully made up their minds that 
slaver}^, the Jonah of our ship, must go overboard. Gentlemen 
on the other side of the House seem exceedingly anxious to save 
some remnants of it; and if, for that end, they will discourage 
the enlistment of white men, how much more may they be ex- 
pected to oppose the enlistment of negroes, which at once strikes 
at the root of slavery, and saps the foundation of their party ? 
It will require greater audacity than most of the gentlemen on 
that side of the House possess, to return to slavery a man, after 
he has fought for his country. 

"In my judgment, this war is not nearly over. It possesses 
a most dangerous element of desperation ; and unless you are 
willing to totall}'' discard the policy that at first, and for a long 
time, controlled it, by arming the slaves, you will not soon see 
the end. Already a thousand days and nights have the people 
waited and watched, but peace has not come. Hope has fre- 
quently brought it to our doors, but like a phantom has it fled 
again. Self-delusion may be pleasant, bat it is a most unpro- 
fitable business. Armies will move in the spring ; other battles 
will be fought, and fields now unnamed, will become noted in 
the history of this war. Its greatest hero is perhaps still un- 
known to fame. You may depend upon it, peace has been 
already postponed by our acting upon the belief that it is near. 
We have turned aside to discuss the rights of traitors, to the 
forget^alness of the more important rights of humanity." 

Mr Cole was amonor the most earnest advocates of the 



CORNELIUS COLE. 439 

Constitutional amendment abolishing slavery, and on the 28th 
of January 1865, made the following brief speech in its favor : 

" The dominion of force is giving away to reason. The right 
ful relations of men to each other are being understood and 
acknowledged. Mutual reliance is a law of civil society, and 
there is no such thing as absolute independence among men. 
Whatever is beneficial to a portion, says the political philoso- 
pher, is beneficial to the Avhole community ; and whatever is 
injurious to a portion is injurious to the whole. Every indi- 
vidual is, therefore, interested in the welfare of every other 
individual, and this without limitation or qualification. The 
obligation to render justice is as wide as the universe, and 
neither nation nor individual can override it with impunity. 
This rule has been recognized by the more enlightened Govern- 
ments in their action upon the subject of slavery. Much has 
been done within the last century to destroy this acknowledged 
evil, and the United States has not lagged behind in the work. 
She was the first to discard distinctions of blood, which all 
history proves to have been fruitful of oppression. She was 
the first to proclaim to the world the inalienable character of 
the right to liberty, and this in the face of powerful opposing 
interests. She was the first, also, to pronounce the trade in 
slaves upon the high seas to be piracy. Boldly taking the lead 
of older nations, and while yet in her infancy, like Hercules, 
she strangled white ^slavery in the Barbary States. She planted 
colonies on the coast of Africa in the very paths of slavery and 
the slave trade. The example she has presented of popular 
government has shaken the foundation of every throne in exist- 
ence. She has done far more than other nations to undermine 
oppression everywhere, and is doing more to-day than all of 
them combined. She had greater obstacles to overcome in the 
performance of this high duty, but she hesitated not to grapple 
with tyranny in all its Protean shapes; and, by the favor of God, 
single-handed and alone, if need be, she will utterly destroy it 
from the face of the earth. Whatever other nations may have 
done against slavery has been done under the constraint of the 
example set them bj the United States of America. The grand 



440 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

old monarcliies of Europe have followed, not led, in this matter. 
Their course in our present, and it is to be hoped final, struggle 
shows that their sympathies are with the oppressor. But jus- 
tice will triumph, freedom prevail, and liberty, exalted in this 
proud capital, will exert its proper sway over the whole world 
and for all time." 

Mr. Cole enjoyed in a large degree the confidence of Mr. Lin- 
coln, and gave a hearty support to his administration, both in 
and out of Congress. He was not re-elected to the House of 
Representatives ; but returned to California to be very generally 
named to succeed Mr. McDougall in the United States Senate, 
to which office he was chosen in December, 1865, with but little 
opposition. 



I 



HON. THADDEUS STEVENS, 

MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM PENNSYLVANIA. 



(^"^/ifT is not often the case that an eminent political leader 

a)l who has, either in local or general politics, maintained 

a position for years in the " forefront of the hottest 

battle," identified with the unpopular, as well as the 

popular measures of his party, and then withdraws for a series 

of years from political life, ever regains his old prestige and 

influence. 

Mr. Stevens is, however, an exception to this, as to most 

other general rules. His early political triumphs were won in 

the prime and flush of manhood ; and he was then regarded as 

the political Warwick of the State of his adoption. For ten of 

the best years of his life, he eschewed politics, and aside from 

sitting in Congress, when he was in a minority for two terms, 

he took no position of leadership until the close of 1859, when 

he was again a member of the House of Representatives, and 

though approaching, at that time, the three score years and ten, 

usually considered the limit of human life, and an almost 

constant sufferer from organic disease, he has been, for nine 

years past, the acknowledged leader of the Republican party in 

the House, and though at times, there have been signs of 

refractoryness among a few of his followers, he has invaria])ly 

succeeded in bringing them into a state of subjection. 

441 



442 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

Thaddeus Stevens was born in Peacliam, Caledonia county, 
Vermont, April 4th, 1792. The family were poor, and Thad- 
deus, when a child, was sickly and lame. His mother, however, 
believed in the abilities and future eminence of her feeble boy, 
and toiled with all her strength, yes, and beyond her strength, 
as many another New England mother has done, to secure 
for him the opportunity of acquiring an education. The boy 
was ambitious and full of high resolves, but so sensitive ; and 
when his schoolfellows (schoolboys will be so cruel) laughed at 
him, and mimicked his limping walk, their ridicule rankled in 
his heart, and brought tears to his eyes. Who knows ? The 
stern, hard man, whose sharp, bitter words lash so pitilessly the 
political offender, may owe something of his severity to the 
cruel experiences of those years of childhood. 

" "Where there is a will, there is a way," says the old. proverb, 
and the poor lame boy of northern Vermont proved it, for, at 
the age of eighteen, he managed to qualify himself to enter 
Dartmouth college, where he graduated with honor, in 1814, and 
the same year removed to Pennsylvania, and commenced the 
study of law, teaching in an academy at the same time to sup- 
port himself. He was admitted to the bar, in Adams county, 
Pennsylvania, in 1816, and soon attained a good practice. At 
first he devoted himself to his profession, to the exclusion of 
politics, which, indeed, had, for some years, little interest for an 
ambitious and enterprising man. The election of John Quincy 
Adams to the presidency, and the bitter contests which followed, 
the triumph of the Democrats, in the election of General Jack- 
son, in 1828, and his decided action, roused the political fervor 
of Stevens, who was at that time a rising and well known law- 
yer in his section. He threw himself into the contest with all 
the zeal and ardor of his nature. He took sides with the Adams 
party, and when that party merged in the Whig party, he was a 



HON. THADDEUS STEVENS. 443 

Whig of the Whigs. But, for some years, he preferred not to 
be a candidate for any office. In 1883, however, he consented 
to run for the Legislature, and was elected by a large majority, 
as he was, also, in 1834, 1835, 1837 and 1841. In 1836, he was 
a member of the convention to make a new Constitution ; but 
being then, as always since, hostile to slavery, he refused to sign 
the document, because it restricted suffrage on account of color. 
When this Constitution was adopted, he was chosen to the Legis- 
lature that followed. This was a time of intense political ex- 
citement. Mr. Van Buren was elected as General Jackson's suc- 
cessor, and Pennsylvania, which had been for some years Whig, 
was revolutionized the following year, and David E. Porter — a 
Democrat — was elected governor in place of Governor Joseph 
Eituer, who had been the chief magistrate for four years pre- 
vious. The two parties talked loudly, and both threatened vio- 
lence. Governor Eitner was so much alarmed that he called 
upon Congress for United States troops to put down an insur- 
rection, which be deemed imminent. The alarm proved unne- 
cessary. Governor Porter was quietly inaugurated, and though 
for a time two Legislatures were in session, Thaddeus Stevens 
(whom the Democrats styled "Governor Eitner's conscience 
keeper") being the leading spirit in one, and an equally ardent 
Democrat in the other, they finally coalesced without violence, 
and united iu the choice of a speaker, and in other acts of legis- 
lation. In 1838, Mr. Stevens was appointed a canal commis- 
sioner, and managed, so far as he had the power, the system of 
internal improvements of Pennsylvania, with skill and ability. 
In 1S42, Mr. Stevens removed to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 
which, since that time, has been his home. Here he has been 
largely engaged in manufacturing, and during the war, (in 1868, 
we believe,) his large and well-appointed manufactory was burned 
by the rebels, in revenge for his intense loyalty. For six years 



444 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

after his removal to Lancaster, Mr. Stevens took no part in poli- 
tics, but gave liis whole time to his business. 

lu 1848, he sufiered himself to be nominated for Congress, 
and was elected both to that and the next (XXXIInd) Congress, 
where he did valiant battle against the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise, the Fugitive Slave law and the Kansas-Nebraska 
abomination. The Democrats now gained the ascendancy, and 
Mr. Stevens was not again in Congress till 1859, having been 
elected by his district to the XXXVIth Congress. His constit- 
uents have been wise enough to re-elect him ever since, and he 
is now serving for his seventh term. His thorough political 
and legal knowledge, his skill in parliamentary tactics, his pow- 
erful and comprehensive intellect, his iron will, and his intense 
loyalty and radicalism, have all combined to make him the 
leader of his party, and his ascendancy is undisputed. It is 
true that, at times, his measures fsfil ; less often in the XLth 
than in the XXXIXth Congress, yet occasionally even in that. 
But, while Mr. Stevens has his faults, and, among them, an im- 
perious will and a stern nature, firm almost to obstinacy, he 
possesses, in a higher degree than most men, those qualities 
w^hich fit him to be, like Agamemnon, " a king of men." 

During the whole war, he was firm and decided in his con- 
viction, that one great purpose of the war, on the part of Divine 
Providence, was to rid us of slavery, and, accordingly, we find 
him bringing forward and putting iipon their passage measures 
and resolutions, looking to the overthrow of slavery. Among 
these were the Indemnity act ; the Xlllth Amendment to the 
Constitution (prohibiting slavery throughout the United States) ; 
the Enrolment act ; a bill to enlist one hundred and fifty 
thousand colored soldiers ; and, at an earlier period, a bill offer- 
ing to free all slaves who left their masters and aided in putting 
down the rebellion. As chairman of the Committee of Ways 



HON. THADDEUS STEVENS. 445 

hnd Means on the part of the House, he always advocated a 
broad and liberal financial policy, and seconded the efforts of 
Secretary Chase with great earnestness. 

In the XXXIXth Congress he was chairman of the Commit- 
tee on Appropriations, an off-schoot of the old Committee on 
Ways and Means, and also of the Committee of Fifteen on 
Reconstruction, and gave special attention to the passage of the 
XlVth Amendment of the Constitution — which, however, ha 
complained, was emasculated in the Senate — to the Freedmen'3 
Bureau bills, the Civil Rights bills, the Basis of Representation 
act, and the Reconstruction measures. 

In the XLth Congress he lent the aid of his clear and judicial 
intellect to the perfecting of the measures of reconstruction, and 
the legislation which would most thoroughly favor these 
measures. His views on finance are generally regarded as les3 
sound and satisfactory than on most other questions, and have 
not met with very general approval ; but he has not, of late at 
least, urged them with so much zeal as formerly. 

Since February 22, 1868, he has been very busily engaged in 
the preparation of the articles of impeachment against President 
Johnson, and in conducting the impeachment trial, of which he 
was one of the managers. His argument, in behalf of impeach- 
ment, is justly regarded as one of the ablest and most logical 
ever delivered before a court. It was prepared, too, amid great 
feebleness and infirmity of body, his condition being at times 
such, that his death was almost hourly expected ; but the style 
has lost nothing of its crispness or vigor by this constant pre- 
sence of pain ; every sentence is as incisive and keen, every 
epithet as carefully selected, every argument as concise and 
pointed, as if he had never known a day of illness. The power 
of the mind over the body was never more finely exemplified. 
Mr. Stevens early became the object of Mr. Johnson's hatred for 



446 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

his straight-forwardness, his integrity, and his intense loyalty 
and radicalism. So long ago as February 22, 1866, Mr. John- 
son, in his speech to the Washington mob, denounced him by 
name, and insisted that Stevens was desirous of assassinating 
him. He associated him then, as he did afterward at St. Louis, 
with Charles Sumner, and denounced both in unmeasured terms. 

Mr, Stevens is, we need hardly say, an earnest advocate of 
impartial suffrage, both North and South. He has avowed 
himself in favor of General Grant for the Presidency, and 
though Benjamin Wade of Ohio was his first choice for Vice- 
President he will acquiesce with great cordiality in the nomina- 
tion of Mr. Colfax, between whom and himself the utmost 
cordiality exists. 

Mr. W. H. Barnes, author of the " History of the XXXIXth 
Congress," well says of him : " His age — over seventy years — 
gave him the respect of members, the majority of whom were 
born after he graduated at college ; the more especially, as these 
advanced years were not attended with any perceptible abate- 
ment of the intellectual vivacity or fire of youth. The evident 
honesty and patriotism with which he advanced over prostrate 
theories and policies toward the great ends at which he aimed, 
secured him multitudes of friends, while these same qualites 
contributed to make him many enemies. The timid became 
bold, and the resolute were made stronger in seeing the bravery 
with which he maintained his principles. He had a habit of 
going straight to the issue, and a rugged manner of presenting 
his opinions, coupled with a cool assurance, which one of his 
unfriendly critics once declared, " sometimes rose almost to the 
sublime" 

There is often in Mr. Stevens's speeches a grim humor which 
is very telling. Thus, on one occasion, speaking of Mr. John- 
son's attempt to control the action of Congress in regard to the 



HON. TIIADDEUS STEVEN'S. 447 

XlVth Constitutional amendment, by holding a conversation 
with a Senator on the subject while it Avas pending, and assert- 
ing that no more Constitutional amendments were needed, and 
then causing this conversation to be published and circulated 
among members of Congress, Mr. Stevens said, " this authorized 
utterance was made in such a way, that, centuries ago, had it 
been made to Parliament by a British King, it would have cost 
him his head. But, sir, we pass that by ; we are tolerant of 
usurpation in this tolerant government of ours." 

At another time, on the debate upon the reconstruction meas- 
ures, speaking of the section prohibiting rebels from voting till 
1870, he said: "here is the mildest of all punishments ever 
inflicted on traitors. I might not consent to the extreme sever- 
ity denounced upon them by a provisional governor of Tennes- 
see; I mean the late lamented Andrew Johnson of blessed memory ; 
but I woujd have increased the severity of this section." 

Yet again, speaking of the third section of the XIYth . 
amendment of the Constitution as he had drawn it (it was much 
weakened in the passage through the Senate), and of the opposi- 
tion it had excited in the House, he said, " Do not, I pray you, 
admit those who have slaughtered half a million of our country- 
men uniil their clothes are dried, and until they are re-clad. 
I do not wish to sit side by side with men whose garments 
smell of the blood of my kindred." 

Long may the veteran patriot yet live, and have the privi- 
lege of seeing his measures of justice accomplished, and a loyal 
chief magistrate presiding over the nation, ere he goes hence. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BUTLER. 




)HE courage, pugnacity, fertility of genius, and patriotism, 
which enter so largely into the composition of Benjamin 
Franklin Butler, are his by inheritance. His grand- 
"^ father, Captain Zephaniah Butler, of Woodbury, Con- 
necticut, fought under General Wolfe at Quebec, and served in 
the Continental army, during the entire war of the Eevolution ; 
while the general's father, John Butler, of Deerfield, New 
Hampshire, was a captain of dragoons in the war of 1812, and 
served for a while under General Jackson at New Orleans. 
And our hero's mother was of that doughty race of Scotch- 
Irish origin, to which belonged Colonel Cilley (also an ancestor 
of General Butler) "who, at the battle of Bennington, commanded 
a company that had never seen a cannon, and who, to quiet 
their apprehensions, sat astride of one while it was discharged." 
John Butler, the ex-captain of dragoons, after the war, fol- 
lowed the sea — in the various capacities of supercargo, merchant 
or captain in the West India trade. In politics he was a full 
blooded Jeffersonian Democrat — one of eight representatives, 
only, of that party, in the town of Deerfield, whose Democracy 
isolated them, socially as well as politically, to a degree which 
is inconceivable to us of the present day, who knew New 
Hampshire a few years ago as the Democratic stronghold of 
New England. So that his son, Benjamin Franklin Butler, 
44S 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BUTLER. 449 

born at Decrfield, on tlie otli of November, 1818, was also 
" l)orn," as has been liappil}'' said, " into the ranks of an ab- 
horred but positive and pugnacious minority — a little Spartan 
baud, always battling, never subdued, never victorious." Five 
months after his birth, the boy lost his father, who died in 
March, 1810, of the yellow fever, while his vessel Avas lying at 
one of the West India Islands. 

His widow, a woman of true New England energy, supported 
her two boys by her individual exertions ; and, in 1828, removed 
to LoAvell, then a young but thriving town of two thousand 
inhabitants; where, by taking boarders, she was enabled to give 
Benjamin better educational advantages than he had before 
enjoj'ed. From tlie common school he passed to the High 
School and from thence to the Exeter Academy, where he pre- 
pared for college. If his own predilections had been consulted, 
he would have gone to West Point — but his mother, who, like 
all New England mothers, desired to see her boy in the ministry, 
consulted with her pastor, and by his advice Benjamin was sent 
to Waterville College, in Maine, an institution recently founded 
by the Baptist denomination. So, with the little occasional 
help received from a kind New Hampshire uncle, and the scanty 
earnings which ho was able to secure from three hours' work 
per day, at chair-making, in the manual labor department of 
the college, he gained the ambition of his young manhood — 
an education, and left the college halls fully determined to be a 
laivy'er. 

Just then there came to him a special Providence — one which 

we might wish Avould come, in like circumstances, to every 

youth as he leaves his Alma Mater, A good-hearted uncle, 

" skipper" of a fishing smack, urged him to accompany him on 

a trip to the coast of Labrador, saying to him, "I'll give you a 

bunk in the cabin, but you must do your duty before the mast, 
29 



450 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

■\vatcli and watch, like a man. I'll warrant 3'ou'll come back 
sound enough in the fall." So the pale-faced student accepted 
the kindly offer and returned from a four months' voyage with 
a fund of perfect health, which has lasted him ever since. 

VtTith renev/ed vigor the youth of twenty commenced the study 
cf law, in the office of William Smith, Esq., of Lowell; and, being 
edmitted to the bar in 1840, entered heart and soul into the 
practice of his chosen profession. He eked out his slender in- 
come by school teaching; he labored indefatigably eighteen 
hours out of the twenty-four; he joined the City Guard, a com- 
pany of the since famous Sixth Eegiment of Massachusetts, and 
perseveringlj^ worked his way through every regular gradation 
up to the ]-ank of colonel. Work he craved — work he would 
have — and work lie succeeded in getting. " All was fish that 
came to his u ;t." "His speeches," says a personal friend, " were 
smart, impudent, reckless, slap-dash affliirs, showing the same 
general traits which have characterized him as a lawyer and 
politician ever since he began his career. He very soon became 
a decided character iu Lowell and Middlesex county. He made 
politics and law play into each other's hands; and while he 
denounced the agents and overseers of the mills as tyrants and 
oppressors, his office was open for the establishment of all sorts 
of lawsuits on behalf of the male and female operatives." 

From his twentieth year ho was an eager, busy politician, 
whom every election-time found diligently " stumping" the neigh- 
boring towns; and (after 1844) regularly attending the National 
Democratic Conventions. His history is closely identified with 
that of the Democratic party in Massachusetts during the jDast 
twenty years. A "Coalitionist" in 1852, he united with the 
Free-Soilers to crush out the old Whig party. In 1853 he was 
elected on the Coalition ticket, to the Legislature — and was the 
acknowledged leader of that party in the House, his wordy 



BEN'JAMTN' PRAXKLIN" BUTLER. 451 

battles with Otis P. Lord, the Whig leader, being memorable in 
the his'toiy of legislative strife and debate in that State. 

In the election of delegates to the Constitutional Convention, 
which shortly followed,, the Coalitionists of Lowell were ably- 
represented by Butler, who exhibited a marked degree of 
ability, and of intimate acquaintance with the principles under 
discussion. And, though the Constitution was rejected, and 
Coalition died out, yet he was always loyal to his old allies, 
the Free-Soilers, and when in 1855, the " Know-Nothing'' or- 
ganization came suddenly into existence, he battled against it 
with all the tremendous energy of which he was capable. 
When the new KnoAV Nothing governor, Gardner, recommend- 
ed in his annual message the exclusion of all persons of 
foreign birth from the state militia ; and ordered the disband- 
ment of certain companies wholly or largely composed of 
such — some of Avhich companies belonged to Colonel Butler's 
regiment, he refused to transmit the order and was sum- 
maril}^ deprived of his command by the governor. He then 
turned around and prosecuted the adjutant-general for remov- 
ing the arms from the armory — but without satisfactory result. 
In 1857, however, he was chosen brigadier-general by the 
officers of the brigade to which his regiment belonged, and 
received his commission from the hands of the same governor 
who had broken him of his colonelcy. During the following 
year he exhibited nis usual vigor and fearlessness as counsel in 
the celebrated Burnham contempt case. In 1858, as the can- 
didate of the " Liberals," Butler ran for governor but was de- 
feated by the " Hunker'' candidate. In the fall of the same 
year, however, the Conservatives elected him to the State 
Senate; and, in 1859, he was nominated, still on the Liberal 
ticket, for the governorship, but, although receiving the full 
vote of his party, Avas defeated by Nathaniel P. Banks. As a 



452 ME^' OF OUR day. 

legislator lie opijosccl the old banking system and adv^ocated 
what is known as the New York system ; and he battled persist- 
ently and successfully for the " ten hour" bill, which gave the 
working men two additional hours out of the twenty-four for 
rest and self-improvement. 

In April, 1860, General Butler was a delegate to the Demo- 
cratic Convention, held at Charleston, S. C, and as a member 
of the committee appointed to prepare a " platform" for that 
party, in the coming Presidential campaign, he took a very 
prominej^t part ; strongly and tenaciously insisting upon an 
adherence to the principles of the platform adopted at the 
Democratic Presidential Convention of 1856, held at Cincinnati. 
Both at Charleston and at Baltimore, at which city the Conven- 
tion met, by adjournment, June 18th, he refused his support to 
any measures which looked to any further concessions to the 
South, on the part of the Democracy of the North. When the 
Convention divided, he, with other delegates who were firmly 
opposed to Douglas's nomination, withdrew from the meeting 
and nominated the " Breckinridge and Lane" ticket, and the 
campaign commenced. It cannot be doubted that in espousing 
thus Breckinridge's interest, he was misled by representations 
made to him by the southern leaders ; for it soon became 
evident that the Breckinridge men at the South, and in Con- 
gress, contemplated treason. On his return to Massachusetts, 
he found himself the most unpopular man in the State — hooted 
at in the streets of Lowell, and a meeting at which he was to 
si>8ak, broken up by a mob. He " had his say out," how- 
ever, at another meeting, and vindicated himself — as events, and 
his own course have since done — from any complicity with 
treason. In the fall of the same year, he became the Breckin- 
ridge candidate for governor, but was defeated, receiving only 
•SIX thousand votes'. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BUTLER. 453 

Tn December, 1860, "Mv. Lincoln having been elected, Butler 
visited Washington on party business, and there became aware 
of the full meaning and extent of the southern movement 
Secessio7i he found to be considered, by its leaders, as an accom- 
plished fact. He reasoned earnestly but fruitlessly Avith them — 
he was offered, in return, a share in their treasonable enterprise. 
Spurning the offer, he waited upon the Government with advice 
which, as a leader of the party in power, he was entitled to 
give; and which, had it been accepted and acted upon, might 
have changed the Avhole aspect of subsequent events. But 
Mr. Buchanan was timorous and embarrassed. Then the gen- 
eral united with his old friend (and political opponent) in 
urging the Governor of Massachusetts to prepare the militia of 
the State for the coming struggle. Governor Andrew followed 
their suggestions — and what of preparation was accom.plished 
was effected not a moment too soon. Sumter fell beneath the 
blows of armed treason. A call came to Boston for two full 
regiments. General Butler, arguing a case in the court-room, 
at 5 p. M., endorsed the order which called the glorious Sixth 
of his brigade to arni.s, at eleven o'clock of the next day, on 
Boston Common. Then he effected a loan of $50,000 from one 
of the Boston banks, to help off the troops ; and within twenty- 
four hours thereafter came an order from Washington Yor a 
full brigade, and he Avas appointed to the command. On the 
17th started the Sixth, on the 18th two regiments by steamer 
and the Eighth by rail, accompanied by General Butler in 
person. Arrived at Philadelphia on the 19th, they heard of 
the attack of the mob upon the Sixth, at Baltimore. Yet, amid 
the many conflicting rumors, and the dread uncertainty which 
hung over their path, the general determined to follow out liis 
orders and march his regiment to Washington via Baltimore. 
Leaving behind them the New York Seventh, Avho declined to 



45i MEN OF OUR DAY. 

share the risk of tliat route, the EiglitL, on the 20tli of April, 
took cars to Havre-de-Grace, and thence by a ferry-boat — im- 
pressed into the service — reached Annapolis, Maryland. Arriv- 
ing at that place they found the town in momentary expectation 
of attack, and the school ship, the old "Constitution," belonging 
to the United States Naval Academy, fast aground and Aveakly 
manned, and at the mercy of the Secessionists. So Butler put 
his little ferry-boat alongside, put on board a guard and a strong 
crew of Marblehead sailors ; and finally, with incredible exer- 
tions, the " Constitution" was towed out to a place of safety. 
Another morning- brouglit a steamer bearing the New York 
Seventh, and ere long, despite the repeated protestations of the 
civic authorities and the Governor of Maryland, both regi- 
ments were landed on the grounds of the Naval Academy. 
Butler now needed the railroad to Washington; but the depot 
was locked, and the track torn up. Seizing, by force, a small and 
purposely damaged engine from the depot, a private soldier 
was soon found who could put it in order — it was speedily in 
running trim, and track-laying commenced. 

The history of the three days' march which followed, laying 
track as they went all the way, forms a wonderful and romantic 
episode in the histor}^ of tbe war ; but on the 2oth the New 
York Seventh saluted the President at the White House, and 
AVashington, as well as the whole North, breathed for the first 
time in many days a long sigh of relief. Butler remained at 
Annapolis, Avhcro his active nature found full employment in 
providing for, and forwarding the troops, which now began to 
pour into the city by thousands. Before the week ended the 
''Department of Annapolis," embracing the country within 
twenty miles of the railroad on each side, was created, and the 
command given to General Butler. 

Meanwhile, Baltimore was in the hands of the sympathizers 



BENJAMIN FPvANKLIN BUTLER. 455 

with treason ; and as Baltimore weut, so went the State. Tlu3 
then was the next great object of solicitude on the part of 
the Government, General Scott proposed to seize it bj a stra- 
tegic movcme:pt of four columns of three thousand men caclu 
General Butler, who had, on the 4th of May, seized the Eelay 
House, nine miles from Baltimore, set forth in the night of the 
13th of May with nine hundred men and some artillery, and 
using a simple stratagem to blind the Baltimorcans to his real 
design, conveyed his force by rail into the city, occupied Fed- 
eral Hill in the midst of a tremendous thunder-storm, planted 
his guards and cannon so as to command the city, and issued 
a "proclamation," which was to the astonished citizens the first 
intimation which they had, on the following morning, of the pre- 
sence of Union troops in their midst. For this he was censured 
by Lieutenant-General Scott, but was immediately commissioned 
a major-general, May 16th, 1861, by President Lincoln, and 
assigned to the command of the new "Department of Virginia," 
(embracing South-eastern Virginia, North and South Carolina) 
with headquarters at Fortress Monroe. He found much to be 
done, the fort to be imiDrovcd, the department to be studied and 
regulated, the troops to be drilleu, and sundry expeditions and 
reconnoissances to be made in the vicinity. He prepared, also, 
an army for an attack upon Eichmond, but it was crippled by 
a sudden call of most of his troops to the defence of Washing- 
ton. On the 9th and 10th of June, occurred the night expedi- 
tion which resulted in the affair at Big Bethel, the first reverse 
which the Union arms had as yet sustained, and which, 
although in the light of subsequent experience, only a skirmish, 
was a heavy blow to the popular expectation in the loyal States. 
Its ill-success, however, was due rather to an unfortunate mis- 
manage -nent in the several commands detailed for the service, 



456 ^lEX OF OUR DAY. 

and in tlic experience of tlie brigadier cornmandiug tlie expedi- 
tion, than to General Butler. 

It was during the Fortress Monroe period, also, that General 
Butler's acute intellect solved the difficulty, whiah had puzzled 
all of our politicians and military men, as to the status of the 
slaves of masters in rebellion against the Federal government, 
bv pronouncing them '■'■ contrahand of zvar,''^ a decision the 
-whimsicality of which is infinitel}'" heightened by the basis of 
truth upon which it is predicated. From General Butler also 
came (in the form of a communication to the Government, 
August BOth, 1861) the first distinct avowal of the right and 
the dut!/ of the Federal Government to emancipate every slave 
within the Union lines. This opinion, urged as a military neces- 
sity, and fortified by unanswerable arguments, was not, how- 
ever, adopted by the Administration for more than a year after. 

On the 19th of August, 1861, he was relieved from the com- 
mand at Fortress Monroe, and on August 26th, sailed in com- 
mand of the military part of an expedition, in conjunction with 
Commodore Stringham, against the forts at Hatteras Inlet. 
They were captured August 29th (together with a large number 
of arms, cannon, and prisoners), and at Butler's suggestion, the 
forts were retained ; serving subsequently as the basis of Burn- 
side's splendid operations on the North Carolina coast. 

The Government now entertained the project of a combined 
land and water attack on New Orleans, and the winter of 
1861-62 was busily spent in preparation for the enterprise, the 
difficulties of which were felt to be as great as its advantages to 
the Union cause Avould be glorious. A fleet of frigates and 
gunboats was fitted out by Commodore Farragut ; a formidable 
mortar fleet was got ready by Commander D. D. Porter, and 
the command of the co-operating land force was given to 
General Butler. The general was assigned to the newly 



BEXJAMIN FRANKLIN BUTLER. 457 

created " Department of New England,'' in order to recruit men 
for the service, and his first transports sailed from Portland, 
Maine, in November, but the public "was not informed as to the 
actual point of operations until the following spring. The 
advance of the expedition, which Avas commanded by General 
Phelps, whose aid Butler had especially desired, reached its 
destination. Ship Island (sixty-five miles from New Orleans, 
and fifty from Mobile Bay, both of which places it thus men- 
aced), early in March, and was followed by the bomb flotilla, 
and transports with a formidable armament of mortars and 
heavy guns. The forts, navy-yard, dry dock, storehouses, 
barracks, and marine hospital at Pensacola, upon which the 
rebels had bestowed great labor and expense, were speedily 
abandoned and burned by them; and about the middle of 
April, the fleet and flotilla gathered together in the Mississippi 
river, ten miles below Forts Jackson and St. Philip. Six days' 
unsuccessful bombardment of these forts (18th to 23d) decided 
Admiral Farragut to run past them, which he successfully 
accomplished on the 2-ith, and anchored before the city of New 
Orleans on the 25th. The forts, however, held out uniil the 
prompt and unexpected landing of Batler's army in the rear of 
Fort St. Philip, and its complete investment on every side, 
obliged their capitulation to the Federal authority. Having 
thus opened the Mississippi in the rear of Farragut's victorious 
fleet, General Butler's army came up the river and on the 1st of 
May, 1862, landed and took possession of New Orleans. The his- 
tory of the occupation of that intensely rebel and defiant city forms 
perhaps the most satisfactory chapter in the history of the war 
of the rebellion.'" " The iron heel of military law was placed 

■^ We acknowledge with pleasure our indebtedness to Mr. Parton's 
Life of General Butler, for this vivid picture of his career at Xew Orleans. 
Mr. Parton's book stands without a rival in its graphic portraiture of 
its subject. 



458 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

with relentless severity upon the stiff necks of a people ulioso 
whole social system had long been a terror to themselves and a 
disgrace to American civilization ; and whose violent passions 
seemed uncontrollable even by the menace of the armed hand. 
But each day that passed, now gave evidence that these 
wretched people had found a master whose will of iron and 
nerves of steel were fully equal to the task, which their con- 
tumacy imposed upon him. Full of sagacity and force, he 
quickly evolved order from chaos, lie found the poor of New 
Orleans starving in the midst of plenty ; he regulated trade so 
that tliey were fed, and the price of food was cheapened. The 
business of the city was dead, and he endeavored to revive it. 
The currency Avas deranged and he improved it. The yellow 
fever was at hand, and the city reeked with filth ; he adminis- 
tered sanitary science with such effect that hut one case occurred 
during a season which generally desolated the city, in which, 
also, there were now 20,000 unacclimated northern troops. The 
city government was hostile and obstructive; he "straightened 
them oat." The foreign consulates were depots of concealment 
for rebel treasure, and centres of foreign and rebel machinations 
against the United States; he quickly possessed himself of the 
money, for the use of the Government, and gave them to under- 
stand that foreion flags could not be allowed to cover domestic 
treason. lie administered the police duty of New Orleans, in a 
manner hitherto unknown to "the oldest inhabitants" — he 
^;hauied into external decency, at least, the rebel women, whose 
liostility to the Yankee invader had overmastered the modesty 
of demeanor which belonged to their sex — he hung Mumford, 
who luul [mlled down the American flag from the Custom House 
upon till,' lirst arrival of the fleet — he assessed the prominent 
and wealthy rebels for the benefit of the poor, and for the cx- 
])enses of his sanitary and other improvements, basing the 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BUTLER. 459 

assessment upon their respective contributions to the rebe] 
dctence of New Orleans — he placed the railroads in running 
order again, he improved the levees — he took the banks " in 
hand" with a vigo"? that was revivifying and wholesome — be 
suppressed rampant newspapers until they learned that " liberty 
of the pen'' did not necessarily mean liceiise — he disarmed New 
Orleans, and so thoroughly sifted the whole population, that he 
knew the particular shade and complexion of each man's poli- 
tics — he permitted registered enemies of the United States to 
seek more congenial homes elsewhere — he relentlessly confisca- 
ted the estates of contumacious rebels ; in short, he suppressed 
the rampant minority which had carried the State out of the 
Union, and fostered the self-respect, protected the interests, 
maintained the rights, and elevated the scale of civilization 
among the people of Louisiana, both white and black, bond and 
free." 

He was not allowed, however, to carry out the splendid work 
of regeneration which he had commenced. Intriguing diploma- 
tists and enemies whose interests had been affected by his 
management in New Orleans, succeeded in procuring his recall; 
and on the IGth of November, 1862, he was relieved of his 
command by General Banks. The policy of conciliation, to 
which his successor gave a fair trial, proved itself an im- 
mediate, complete, and undeniable failure. General Butler'3 
return home was a series of honorable welcomes from the cities 
and communities of the loyal States through which he passed, 
and he was presented, by Congress, with one of the captured 
swords of tlie rebel General Twiggs. 

During the year 1863, General Butler, being without a 
command, rendered good service to the Government by his 
public speeches in various places ; and in July and November 
of that year was, for a short time, invested with the chief mili- 



J:60 MEN- OF 01 R DAY. 

tarr command of New York city, wliicli had recently been tlie 
scene of the terrible " draft riots." 

When Lieutenant-General Grant, in the spring of 1864, 
inaugurated his great and final campaign, he assigned to 
General Butler the command of the Army of the James, which 
was composed of the corps formerly known as the Army of 
Eastern Virginia and North Carolina, the 18th corps from 
Louisiana, and the 10th corps, partly of colored troops, from 
(General Gillmore's) the Department of the South. To his 
division of tlie Grand Army Avas assigned the duty of seizing, 
by an adroit manoeuvre, the position of Bermuda Hundred, on 
the south bank of the James, midway between Eichmond 
and Petersburg ; and the interposing of such a force between 
those two cities, as should isolate them from each other and 
result in the capture of the latter. This part of the programme 
was skilfully carried out by General Butler; Bermuda Hun- 
dred (on the -Ith of May, 1864) was occupied and fortified ; on 
the 7th, the railroad was cut below Petersburg. A strong but 
unavailing attack was made upon Fort Darling on May 13th ; 
and the repeated attempts of the enem}'- (21st and 24:th), to 
drive him from his own position, were each handsomely re- 
pulsed. On the lOtli, an attempt was made to capture Peters- 
burg; General Gillmore, with about three thousand five hun- 
dred troops attacking it on the north. General Kautz's cavalry 
force on the south, and General Butler, with the gunboats as- 
saulting from the north and east. The plan was partially and 
handsomely carried out by Butler and Kautz, the latter of 
whom entered the city and maintained a hand-to-hand fight for 
sometime ; but the enterprise was finally rendered abortive by 
General Gillmore's declining, with the force at his command, to 
attack the rebel works. 

During the summer General Butler's forces had been cutting 



BEXJAMIX FEAXKLIX BUTLER. 4(jl 

a canal across the neck of a peninsula, called Farrars Island, 
formed bj a six-mile bend in the River James. This neck of 
land was only half a mile across, so that the canal, it was 
expected, would greatly shorten and facilitate the passage of 
gunboats on the river. As it, also, somewhat imperilled Fort 
Darling and flanked the rebel position at Howlett's, it w^ould 
oblige them to erect new and more extended lines of defence ; 
and the Confederates made a desperate attempt, on the 12th of 
August, to shell out the negroes who were at work on the 
canal, or " Dutch Gap," as it was called. In order to relieve 
the ditchers from the annoyance to which they were subjected 
by the heavy fire from rebel rams and batteries, an attack was 
made upon the Confederate position at Strawberry Plains, on 
the 14th, w4iich resulted in a Union victory, and was followed 
by another success at Deep Bottom, on the 16th. Eebel pris- 
oners were also set at work in the "Givp." While these move- 
ments wef-e in progress, Grant seized the opportune moment to 
attempt to gain possession of the Weldon Railroad ; which was, 
after repeated and desperate fighting, secured and torn up for 
a considerable distance, on the 21st. In all the subsequent 
movements of the Union forces before Richmond and Peters- 
burg, the Army of the James, under General Butler, contributed 
their full share of heroic fighting, patient waiting, and hard work. 
Early in the month of December, an expedition was planned 
by General Grant against Wilmington, Xorth Carolina, which 
had long been one of the principal channels by which foreign 
supplies of arms, ammunition, clothing, etc., had reached the 
Confederacy. Its formidable defences, and the peculiar nature 
of its coast, rendered its successful closure against blockade- 
runners almost impossible; a fact at which both the Govern- 
ment and the officers of the blockading squadron felt deeply 
chagrined. The naval portion of the expedition, which set 



462 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

sail on the 9tb, was commanded by Admiral P »rter, and the 
land forces, Avhich sailed on the 12th, had been drawn from the 
Army of the James, and were commanded by General Butler 
in person. 

Arriving off New Inlet on the 2-ith, the squadron opened a 
fire upon Fort Fisher, Avhich, for rapidity, intensity and weight 
of metal, was hitherto unexampled in the history of warfare. 
On the 25th, the land forces were disembarked; a joint assault 
was ordered at evening, the troops attacking the land face of 
the fort, while the fleet Avas to bombard its sea front. Upon 
moving forAvard to the attack, however. General Weitzel, who 
accompanied the column, came to the conclusion, from a careful 
reconnoissance of the fort, that " it would be butchery to order 
an assault ;'' and General Butler, having formed the same opin- 
ion from other information, re-embarked his troops, and sailed 
for Hampton Roads. The opinion of General Weitzel, an ex- 
perienced engineer officer, to the effect that the fort had been 
" substantially unimpaired" by the terrific naval fire to which 
it had been for several days subjected, did not satisfy Admiral 
Porter, Avhose report to the Naval Department reflected some- 
what upon General Butler's course; and upon that general's 
return to the James river, he was relieved from the command 
of the Army of the James, and ordered to report at Lowell, 
Massachusetts, his residence. 

The successful capture of Fort Fisher and "Wilmington, two 
weeks later, by Admiral Porter and General Terry, greatly in- 
creased the popular dissatisfaction with General Butler — but his 
course seems to have been fully justified by unimpeachable 
evidence which was subsequently adduced. It was, however, 

the last active military service performed by General Butler. 
In November 1866, he was elected on the Republican ticket 

Representative in the XLth Congress for the fifth district of 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BUTLER. 403 

MassacliusQifcts, receiving 9,021 votes against 2,838 votes for 
jSTortliend, Democrat. During the present year he has taken a 
conspicuous part as one of the Managers of the impeachment 
and trial of President Johnson, His speech at the opening of 
the impeachment trial was pronounced, even by his opponents, 
the ablest of its kind on record. 

Of General Butler, as a lawyer, it has been well said by one 
Avho knew him intimately, that " At the criminal terms of the 
Middlesex Court, ho has done a greater amount of business than 
anybody else, and his reputation at present is that of the most 
successful criminal lawyer of the State. Ilis devices and shifts 
to obtain an acquittal and release are absolutely endless and in- 
numerable. He is never daunted or baffled until the sentence is 
passed and put in execution, and the reprieve, pardon, or com- 
mutation is refused. An indictment must be drawn with the 
greatest nicety, or it will not stand his criticism. A verdict of 
" guilty" is nothing to him — it is only the beginning of the case; 
he has fifty exceptions, a hundred motions in arrest of judg- 
ment ; and after that, the habeas corpus and personal replevin. 
Tlie opposing counsel never begins to feel safe until the evidence 
is all in, for he knows not what new dodges Butler may spring 
upon him. lie is more fertile in expedients than any man who 
practices law among us." And this same fertility of resource 
did the country rare good service during the recent war of the 
rebellion. Yet he is not logical — his statements and arguments, 
when closely analyzed, arc frequently mere sophistical decep- 
tions, so ingeniously constructed, however, that he often believes 
them himself. But they are always ingenious, bewilderi»g, set 
with homely illustrations, full of insinuations, and put with such 
vehemence and in such i)lain Anglo-Saxon, i^ often to totally 
overwhelm his adversary. / 

Anecdotes innumerable are told of his auda nty, and quickness 



404 MEN OF OUR DAT. 

of retort. Upon one of liis first cases being called into court be 
said, in tbe usual way, " Let notice be given I" " In wliat 
paper?" asked tbe aged clerk of tbe court, a strenuous Wbig. 
"In tbe Lowell Advertiser,^'' was tbe reply; tbe Advertiser being a 
Jackson paper, never mentioned in a Lowell court; of wbose 
mere existence, few tbere present would confess a knowledge. 
"Tbe Lowell Advertiser T^ said tbe clerk witb disdainful non- 
cbalance, "I don't know sucb a paper." " Pray, Mr. Clerk," said 
young Butler, "do not interrupt tbe proceedings of tbe Court; 
for if you begin to tell us wbat you dont know, tbere will be no 
time for any thing else." So, at a later date, and not long after 
tbe execution of Professor Webster, of Harvard College, lov tbe 
murder of Dr. Parkman, wben be was examining a professor of 
tbat college as a witness, and was "badgering" bim in bis usual 
not very respectful manner, tbe opposing counsel appealed to 
tbe court, reminding tbem tbat tbe witness was an educated 
gentleman "and a Harvard professor." Butler contemptuously 
replied " I am aware of it, your Honor ; Ave bung one of tbem 
tbe otber day." 

In tbe very recent impeacbment trial, tbe Hon. Fernando 
"Wood; of Xew York, received one of tbose scatbing replies 
wbicb Butler can strike out instantaneously at " a wbite beat." 
Mr. Wood undertook to protest to the "replication" entered 
before the Court of Impeacbment, on tbe ground that be, as one 
of "tbe people of tbe United States" in wbose name it was made, 
objected to it. Greneral Butler immediately turned upon bim 
witb — " The representatives of tbe people usually rc])rescnt tbem, 
but tbe gentleman (Mr. Wood) bas not even tbe merit of origin- 
ality in bis objection. Tbe form is one tbat lias been used 500 
years, lacking eigbt. Tbe objection was made to it once before, 
and only once, wben tbe people of England, smarting under tbe 
usurpation and tyranny of Cbarles I., not baving an^^ provision 



BEXJAMIX FRAXKLIX BUTLER. 401* 

in their Constitution as wc have, by which that tyrant could be 
brought to justice outside of their Constitution, and in a per- 
fectly legal manner, as I understand and believe, brought Charles 
to justice. "When proclamation was made that they were pro- 
ceeding in the name of all the people of England, one of tlie ad- 
herents rose and said, 'No, all the people do not consent to it,' 
so that the gentleman has at least a precedent for what he has 
done ; and I wish we could follow out the precedent in this 
House, because the Court inquired who made that objection, and 
tried to find the offender for the purpose of piinishinrj him [laugh- 
ter] ; but as he concealed himself he could not be found, and he 
afterward turned out to he a woman [laughter], the wife of General 
Fairfax, who ratted on that occasion from the rest of the Com- 
mons." And, then, in reply to some strictures in which AYood 
had indulged concerning an implied lack of courtesy on the part 
of the House Managers — he quietly remarked that he " hoped 
the House would not receive any lectures or suggestions upon 
propriety of language, or propriety of conduct, from the gentleman 
who stanch as yet under its censure for a violation of all parliament- 
ary rules f an allusion to an event of only a few weeks previous 
occurrence, which effectually "squelched" the impertinent leader 
of the " Mozart Democracy." 
80 



HON. WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 




Q^^HE Eepublican party is the legitimate heir of the old 
Federal and Whig parties — the parties of Washington 
and Webster — which, in the ancient and medigeval pe- 
riods of the Republic, as they may be termed, illustrated 
the sentiment and the idea of nationality as opposed to the 
heresy of State sovereignty. 

There is, nevertheless, flowing in the veins of this great Ee- 
publican organization much of the best blood of the old Demo- 
cratic party. The men who adopted the political teachings of 
Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, and 
the inspirer of the ordinance of 17S9, who heartily believed the 
great American doctrines of the freedom and equality of all 
men, and the power and duty of the nation to protect the na- 
tional domain from the pollution of human slavery, passed, by 
a natural transition, into the Republican ranks when the Demo- 
cratic party abandoned the faith of its fathers, and became the 
embodiment of a " creed outworn." 

Among the men of the Democratic party who earliest sepa- 
rated from " its decaying forms," and contributed to organize a 
new party, in the light of truth and reason, on the basis of 
inherent, inalienable right, was the subject of this sketch — 
William Darrah Kelley. 

He was born in the Northern Liberties of Philadelphia, on 

the 12th of April, 1814. His grandfather, Major John Kelley 
4G6 



HON. WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 467 

was a native of Salem county, New Jersey, and served througli- 
out the Eevolution as an officer of the Continental line. The 
son of this Revolutionary officer, and the father of the subject 
of this memoir — David Kelley — removed from New Jersey to 
Philadelphia, where he married a lady of Bucks county, Penn- 
sylvania — Miss Hannah Darrah. The cloud of financial em- 
barrassment, which, at the close of the war of 1812, darkened 
the horizon, cast its deep shadow over the fortunes of Mr. Kel- 
ley ; and by his death, in 1816, his widow was left, without an 
estate, to support and educate a dependent family of four chil- 
dren, the youngest of whom — William — was but two years of 
age. Mrs. Kelley struggled nobly and well to fulfil this great 
trust, and lived to witness the consummation of her most ambi- 
tious hopes in the prosperity and advancement of her distin- 
guished son. 

At eleven years of age, it became necessary that William 
should earn his own living. He accordingly left school, and 
became an errand boy in a book store, then a copy-reader in the 
office of the " PhUad€l]ohia Inquirer''' newspaper, and finally an 
apprentice to Messrs. Rickards & Dubosq, manufacturing jewel- 
lers, of Philadelphia. He attained his freedom in the spring of 
1834. This was the era of the removal of the deposits from 
the United States Bank ; and Mr. Kelley's first experience in 
political leadership was gained in encouraging and organizing 
the resistance of the Democratic workingmen to the tyrannous 
demands of the Whig capitalists of Philadelphia. The stand 
he took on this question rendered it difficult for him to obtain 
employment in his native city. He accordingly removed to 
Boston, and at once secured a situation in the establishment of 
Messrs. Clark and Curry. In Boston, the spirit of New England 
culture took deep hold upon his nature. While laboring with 
characteristic industry in the most difficult branch of his trade — 



MEN OF OUR DAY. 

the art of enamelling — and achieving a high reputation as a 
skilful aud tasteful workman, lie improved his scholarship by 
solitary study ; and his contributions to the newspapers of the 
day, and written and extemporaneous lectures and addresses 
before jpublic audiences, established his reputation as a writer 
aud speaker of ability and power, in association even with such 
men as Bancroft, Brownson, Alexander H. Everett, Channing 
and Emerson. 

In 1839, he returned to Philadelphia, and entered, as a stu- 
dent of law, the. office of Colonel James Page, a local leader of 
the Democratic party, and the postmaster of Philadelphia. On 
April 17, 1841, he Avas admitted to the bar of the several courts 
of his native city. His advancement in the profession was im- 
mediate and rapid ; while, in every political canvass, local and 
national, his stirring addresses attracted large audiences, and 
rendered him one of the most conspicuous figures in the Demo- 
cratic part}'. In January, 1845, he was appointed by the attor- 
ney-general of the State — Hon. John K. Kane — to conduct, in 
connection with Francis Wharton, Esq., who has since become 
celebrated as a writer on criminal law, the pleas of the Com- 
monwealth in the courts of Philadelphia. In March, 1846, 
Governor Shunk appointed Mr. Kelley a judge of the Court of 
Common Pleas, a tribunal whose jurisdiction was co-extensive 
with the common law, chancery and ecclesiastical courts of 
England. In 1851, he was elected to the same bench, under the 
new Constitution of the State, upon an independent ticket, in 
defiance of the attempted proscription of the Democratic party 
organization, which was embittered against him for his course 
in the contested election case of Eeed and Kneass. This was a 
triumphant vindication by the people of the justice and integ- 
rity of his action in that cause. 

But Judge Kelley did not confine himself to the topics of his 



HON. WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 469 

professf.on or to the discussion of political questions. The pro- 
tection of the weak and down-trodden, the reformation of the 
ignorant and vicious, and the promotion of education, have ever 
found in him an eloquent and powerful advocate. Ilis re- 
markable powers of oratory, give additional effect to his chaste 
and polished style, and few public speakers have proved so 
effective. "We offer the following passages from an address of 
his before the Linncean society of Pennsylvania college, Gettys- 
burg, on the " Characteristics of the Age," delivered over twenty 
years ago, as giving an idea of the felicity and beauty of his 
style, as a writer. The earnestness and the clear ringing tones 
of the orator are wanting to give it full effect. 

" I would not disparage the value of the ' little learning' 
which enables a man to read and write his mother tongue with 
fiicility. When 'commerce is king,' the ability to do this is 
little less than essential to the physical well-being of the citizen. 
Under such government the receipt-book peaceably enough 
performs a large share of the functions of the embattled wall 
and armed retainers of the days when force was laAV. But to 
rise above the commercial value of these slender aitainments, 
he who can read the language of Shakspeare and Milton, John- 
son and Addison, Shelley and Wordsworth, has the key to the 
collected wisdom of his race. The farms around his workshop, 
the property of others, present to his view a landscape which is 
his, and to him belongs every airy nothing to which poet ever 
gave habitation or name. The sages of the most remote past 
obey his call as counsellors and friends ; and in the company 
of prophet and apostle he may approach the presence of the 
Most High. The value of such a gift is inestimable. Wisdom 
and justice would make it the certain heritage of every child 
born in the commonwealth. 

" The spirit of commerce is essentially selfish. Voyages are 
projected for profit. The merchant, whose liberal g'ifts surprise 
the world, chaffers in his bargains. Not for man ts a family 



i70 MEN OF OUR DAY 

of brethren, therefore, are the blessing of this age. They are 
the gifts of a common Father, but they come not, like light and 
dew, insensibly to all. They mark the achievements of our race, 
and manifest the master-spirit of the age, but hitherto they 
have been felt but slightly by the masses of mankind. Wealth 
increases ; bat its aggregation into few hands takes place with 
ever-growing rapidity. The comforts of life abound ; but when 
the markets of the world are glutted, hunger is in the home of 
the artisan. Over-production causes the legitimate effects of 
famine. The ingenuity of political economists is vainly taxed 
for the means of preventing the accumulation of surplus mate- 
rial and fabrics. And while warehouse and granary groan 
with repletion, heartless theory points to the laboring popula- 
tion reduced to want and pauperism, and with dogmatic empha- 
sis, inquires if the increase of population cannot be legally 
restrained ? The state of the market shows that there are more 
men than commerce requires, and a just system of economy 
would adapt the supply to the demand ! 

* * * * 

"Ancient philosophy did not recognize utility as an aim. It 
contemned, as mechanical and degrading, the discovery or in- 
vention that improved man's physical condition. Socrates 
invented no steam-engine or spinning -jenny. The soul was his 
constant study. Eegardless of his own estate, he cared not for 
the material comfort of others. Indifferent to the world him- 
self, he sought to raise his disciples above it. A disputatious 
idler and a scoffer at utility, he fashioned Plato and swayed the 
world for centuries. Our philosophy comes from Bacon. It 
only deals with the wants of man and uses of nature. The 
body is the object of its solicitude. Earth is the field of ita 
hopes. Time bounds its horizon. Fruit, material fruit — the 
multiplication of the means of temporal enjoyment — was the 
end Lord Bacon had in view, when, denouncing the schools, he 
gave his theories to the world. Time and experience have 
vindicated his methods. But have they not also shown, that 
a system whic*". offers, no sanction to virtue and no restraints 
to vice, whose only instruments are the senses, and whose only 



HON. WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 471 

subject is material law, may impart to a world the vices which 
made the wisest also the meanest of mankind," 

In August, 1856, Judge Kellej was nominated, while absent 
from home, as the Republican candidate for Congress from the 
fourth Congressional district of Pennsylvania. lie was not 
elected ; for the Eepublican idea had made at that day but 
feeble impression in Philadelphia, and the party was without 
means or organization. During that canvass he made his first 
great Republican address on Slavery in the Territories, in Spring 
Garden Hall, Philadelphia. Motives of delicacy prompted him 
to resign his judicial office immediately after the election, and 
he returned, after a term of nine years and nine months on the 
bench, to the private practice of his profession. In October 
1860 he was elected on the Republican ticket to the seat in 
Congress to which he has been three times since returned b^r 
his constituents. On his return from the special session of 
Congress which convened on July 4th 1861, he participated a? 
counsel for the Government, in the prosecution of the pirates of 
the rebel privateer, "Jeff Davis," and made a brilliant closing 
argument in that great State trial. 

In Congress he has spoken at length upon every national 
topic ; and, in most instances, he has borne the standard of his 
party, and planted it far in advance, holding it with firm and 
steady hand, until his friends occupied the position. 

As early as January 7th, 1862, he detected the fatal errors 
of the military policy of McC-lellan, and warned the country of 
the incompetency of that officer, in an impromptu reply to the 
speech of Vallandigham, on the Trent case. On the 16th of 
January, 1865, he vindicated, in an elaborate speech, the justice 
and necessity of impartial suffrage as a fundamental condition 
of the restoration of Republican Governments in the rebel 
States. On the 22d of June, 1865, in an address on " the Safe- 



4:72 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

guards of Personal Liberty," at Concert Hall, Philadelphia, he 
criticised the policy of reconstruction foreshadowed by Presi 
dent Johnson in his North Carolina proclamation, and indicated 
a plan of action, in respect to the rebel States, which has been 
since substantially embodied in the reconstruction acts of 
Congress. In his speech on " Protection to American Labor," 
delivered in the House of Eepresentatives, on the 31st of 
January, 1866, he indicated a financial policy, in reference to the 
payment of the public debt, which Congress has fully adopted 
in the repeal of the cotton tax, and the modification of the 
duties on manufactured products. In connection with these 
remarkable speeches, may be mentioned his speech of the 27th 
of February, 1866, on "the Constitutional Regulation of Suf- 
frage." Two of Judge Kelley's speeches in Congress — that of 
January 16th, 1865, on Suffrage, and that of January 31st, 
1866, on Labor — have had more extensive circulation than the 
speeches of any other American statesman. More than half a 
million copies of each have been printed and distributed. 

At the first session of the XXXIXth Congress, Judge Kelley 
introduced the bill, which was afterwards passed with certain 
modifications, to secure the right of suffrage to the colored 
population of the District of Columbia. 

On the evening of the 22d of February, 1868, he spoke in 
favor of the impeachment of the President, and more recently 
participated in the debate in the House of Representatives on 
the resolution of Mr. Broomall, of Pennsylvania, to prohibit 
hereditary exclusion from the right of suffrage, and defended 
the position taken by him in his more extended speech, two 
years before, on the Constitutional Regulation of Suffrage. 

We have not space even to mention the numerous speeches 
ftnd addresses of Judge Kelley in and out of Congress. He 
has addressed his fellow citizens from tlie lakes to the gulf. 



HON. WILLIAM D. KELLEY. 473 

In the spring of 1867, he visited the Southern States, and in a 
series of addresses at New Orleans, Montgomery, and other 
cities, spoke earnest and eloquent words of hope and encourage- 
meujf, to the people of the South. The noble wisdom and 
tender humanity which pervade these speeches, stamp them as 
4he production of a statesman and philanthropist. They were 
words of friendly counsel, which the people of the South would 
do well to heed. 

A comprehensive, national character, and a generous, in- 
tense, all-embracing humanity, have always characterized 
Judge Kelley's political opinions. He saw, in the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise, conclusive evidence that the Democratic 
party had become sectional; and he left it. He found that 
Democracy, which once had meant civil and religious liberty, 
equality, justice, advancement, the greatest good of the greatest 
number, had come to mean proscription of opinion, aristocracy, 
tyranny, disorder, slavery ; and he abandoned it. 

He is- therefore one of the fathers of the National Eepublican 
party. The sincerity and earnestness of his convictions would 
always gain for him the attention of the House of Eepre- 
sentatives, if it were not commanded by the striking and en- 
gaging peculiarities of his eloquence. He appears with equal 
advantage in impromptu reply, and in elaborately prepared 
address. His vehement declamation, delivered in tones of voice 
marvellously rich and powerful, thrills, on occasions, the 
members upon the floor, and the listeners in the galleries ; as 
when, on the memorable night of the 22d of February, he 
exclaimed : — 

" Sir, the bloody and untilled fields of the ten unreconstructed 
States, the uusheeted ghosts of the two thousand murdered 
negroes in Texas, cry, if the dead ever invoke vengeance, for 
the punishment of Andrew Johnson." 



47-i MEN OF OUR DAY. 

Judge Kflley is altogether the most considerable public 
character whom Philadelphia has ever sent to the national 
councils. She has too few of such men — men of progressive 
ideas, commanding talents, and national fame ; and when ^ne 
has served her, as Judge Kelley has, through eight veara of 
eventful history, it becomes her duty, as a just comni' lity, to 
cherish and honor him. 



HON. JOHN A. BINGHAM, 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM OHIO. 



I'^MONG the most active and efficient members of the 
1^ House of Eepresentatives is Mr. Bingham, of Ohio. 
^.^ Slight in form, of mercurial temperament, quick, 
nervous, sometimes irascible, he yet secures the attention 
of the House, when he speaks, by his brilliant oratory, his sharp, 
cutting sarcasms, and the evident earnestness with which he 
advocates his side of a question. At times a little erratic, and 
not always a safe leader, he yet wins converts to his views by 
his skilful rhetoric, and his adroit manner of putting his posi- 
tions. A logician, in the highest sense of the word, he is not ; 
his inclination is rather to the rhetorical and diffuse, though, at 
times, he makes a clear and connected argument. He is 
regarded as an able lawyer, and as especially skilful in cross- 
examining witnesses, and in the numerous trials he has con- 
ducted, he has exhibited this skill in a marked degree ; though 
in the impeachment trial, he was distanced by his colleague. 
General Butler, who has perhaps, in that special field of legal 
practice, no superior in the United States. 

John A. Bixgham was born in Mercer county, Pennsylvania, 
in 1815. Having received a good academical education, he spent 
two years in a printing office, and then entered Franklin college, 
Ohio, but owing to ill health, did not complete his collegiate 

course. He subsequently studied law, and was admitted to the 

475 



476 ^lEX OF OUR DAY. 

bar, in Ohio. In 1845, he was appointed attorney for .he State, 
in Tuscarawas county, Ohio, and retained the position till 1849. 
He devoted himself sedulously to his profession for several 
years, at Cadiz, the county seat of Harrison county, to which 
he had removed, and in 1854, was elected a Eepresentative in 
Congress, from the sixteenth district of Ohio. During his first J 
term (1855-7) he was a member of the Committee on Elections, 
and made a report on the Illinois contested cases, which was 
adopted. He was also a member of other important committees. 
Mr. Bingham was re-elected to the XXXVth, XXXYIth, 
XXXVIIth, XXXIXth, and XLth Congresses, and has there- 
fore had eleven years of service in the House of Eepresentatives, 
though not a member of the XXXVIIIth Congress (1863-65). 
He is classed with the Eadical Republicans, and has shown 
himself as strongly opposed to slavery as any member of the 
House. He has always had a prominent place on important 
committees — being a member of the Judiciary Committee, the 
Committee on Military Affairs, Freedmen, Reconstruction, etc. 
He was chairman of the Managers of the House, in the impeach- 
ment of Judge Humphreys, in May, 1862. 

In 1863, he was appointed United States district judge, for 
the southern district of Florida, but declined the appointment ; 
early, in 1864, he was appointed judge advocate in the Union 
army, and later, in the same year, solicitor of the Court of 
Claims. He was assistant judge advocate in the trial of the 
conspirators, for the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, in 1865, and 
conducted the trial with great ability. Some charges made by 
General Butler in regard to this trial, led to a bitter controversy 
between them, but this was finally adjusted, and the parties 
reconciled. In the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson, 
February 22, to May 26, 1868, Mr. Bingham was chairnian of 
the Managers of tlie House of Representatives, and conducted 



HON. JOHN A. BINGHAM. 477 

the trial wicn decided ability. His address in summing uj) tho 
evidence was felicitous and brilliant, as well as impressive. 

Mr. Bingham's health is by no means vigorous, and this may 
have imparted to his face a stern and somewhat sad expression, 
which has led his friends to speak of him as the best natured, 
but Grossest looking man in the House. 



HON. JAMES F. WILSON, 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM IOWA. 




j^J^'^ N able, clear-headed lawyer, of cool, calm, judicial mind 
and sterling patriotism, is the Eepresentative from the 

y, w/ first Congressional district of Iowa. The West has sent 
very few Eepresentatives of higher talent or greater 
ability and disposition for usefulness, to Congress within the 
last twenty years. Although a comparatively young man, (he 
has not yet seen his fortieth birthday,) the House leans upon 
him, confides in him, and places him in its positions of great 
responsibility, and it never finds itself disappointed. 

James F. Wilson was born at Newark, Ohio, October 19, 
1828 ; received in that city, which, for years, has been famous 
for its good schools, a very thorough academic education, and 
then commenced the study of the law, and was admitted to the 
Licking county bar, about 1849 ; in 1853, he removed to Fair- 
field, Iowa, where he speedily took a high rank in his profes- 
sion. In 1856, though but twenty-eight years old, he was 
chosen a member of the convention to revise the State Consti- 
tution, and acquitted himself with honor there. In 1857, he 
was appointed, by the governor of the State, Assistant Com- 
missioner of the Des Moines River Improvement. The same 
year he was elected to the Legislature, and became at once a 
leader in the House. In 1859, he was chosen State Senator, and 

re-elected in 1861, when he was made President of tue Senate. 

478 



HON. JAMES F. ^^^ILSON. 479 

In this position, at the outbreak of the war, he manifested so 
much patriotism, and so clear a comprehension of what was the 
duty of Iowa in aiding in the suppression of the rebellion, as to 
attract the attention of the people of that eminently loyal State, 
and rendered great service to the cause. When General Samuel 
R. Curtis, the Representative of the first district in Congress, 
resigned his seat, to take command of Iowa troops for the war, 
Mr. Wilson was promptly chosen to serve out the remainder of 
his term, and has since been re-elected to the XXXVIIIth, 
XXXIXth and XLth Congresses, and will probably be continued 
there till a vacancy in the Senate shall cause him to be trans- 
ferred to that body. 

Though one of the youngest members of the House, the lead- 
ing men in it were not slow in discovering his superior abilities, 
and, at the beginning of the XXXVIIIth Congress, he was made 
Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, in many respects the 
most important committee of the House, though such men as 
George S. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, and Thomas Williams, 
of Pennsylvania, were members of the committee. The event 
has justified Speaker Colfax's selection. 

Mr. Wilson has manifested rare ability in this position, and 
rai^ly reports a bill which does not pass the House. In his 
political views, he is radical, yet cautious, but stern and uncom- 
promising in regard to matters which he believes to be right. 
He has a rare faculty of seizing on the strong points of a case, 
and presenting them with such clearness and force as to insure 
conviction. »He has usually done this in all the great measures 
he has brought forward from his committee in the House. 

In his argument for granting impartial suffrage in the District 
of Columbia, he urged the early practice of the colonies, and 
most of the original States, in permitting colored sufii-age, the 
causes which led to their apostacy from this ; the low grade of 



480 ^ men" of our day. 

Union feeling among the white inhabitants and voters of the 
District, and the true principle of legislation on suffrage, and 
closed with the following appeal to the House : 

"And now, Mr. Speaker, who are the persons upon whom 
this bill will operate if we shall place it upon the statute-book 
of the nation ? They are citizens of the United States and resi- 
dents of the District of Columbia. It is true that many of them 
have black faces ; but that is God's work, and he is wiser than 
we. Some of them have faces marked by colors uncertain; 
that is not God's fault. Those who hate black men most in- 
tensely can tell more than all others about this mixture of colors. 
But, mixed or black, they are citizens of this republic, and 
they have been, and are to-day, true and loyal to their Govern- 
ment, and this is vastly more than many of their contemners 
can claim for themselves. 

" In this district a white skin was not the badge of loyalty, 
while a black skin was. No traitor breathed the air of this 
capital wearing a black skin. Through all the gradations of 
traitors, from Wirz to Jeff. Davis, criminal eyes beamed from 
white faces. Through all phases of treason, from the bold 
stroke of Lee upon the battle-field to the unnatural sympathy 
of those who lived within this district, but hated the sight of 
their country's flag, runs the blood which courses only under a 
white surface. While white men were fleeing from this city to 
join their fortunes with the rebel cause, the returning wave 
brought black faces in their stead. White enemies went out, 
black friends came in. As true as truth itself were these poor 
men to the cause of this imperilled nation. Wherever we have 
trusted them they have been true. Why will we not deal 
justly by them ? Why shall we not, in this district, where the 
first effective legislative blow fell upon slavery, declare that 
these sufi'ering, patient, devoted friends of the republic, shall have 



HOX. JAMES F. WILSON. 481 

The power to protect their own rights by their own ballots? 
Is it because thej are ignorant ? Sir, we are estopped from 
that plea. It comes too late. Wc did not make this inquiry 
in regard to the white voter. It is only when we see a man 
.vith a dark skin that we think of ignorance. Let us not stand 
on this view in relation to this district. The fact itself is 
rapidly passing away, for there is no other part of the popula- 
tion of the district so diligent in the acquisition of knowledge 
as the colored portion. In spite of the difficulties placed in 
their pathway to knowledge by the white residents, the colored 
people, adults and children, are steadily pressing on." He 
finished by urging the passage of the bill, which he secured a 
few days later by a vote of more than two thirds. 

Ou the trial of Andrew Johnson upon the articles of im- 
peachment preferred against him by the House of Representa- 
tives, Mr, Wilson was cliosen one of the managers of the trial, 
and in a closing argument of great force and pertinence, demon- 
strated the guilt of the President. 
31 



HON. ROSCOE CONKLING. 

UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM NEW YORK. 



r-9^' 



^ 



Tllll HEN, some years since, the Eepresentative of the twenty- 
first Congressional District of New York \v'as declared, by 
a majority of his peers, to have been guilty of corruption, 
and to be unworthy of a seat with them, the Eepublican 
voters of that district, one of the most intelligent and refined 
in the state, looked about them for a man of integrity and 
purity of character who should fully represent their sentiments 
in the national legislature. Such a man they found sjDeedily ; 
a young man but little more than thirty years of age, but of 
highly cultivated intellect, staunch integrity, an eminent advo- 
cate, and at that time mayor of Utica, the chief city of the 
district. They elected him ; and, young as he was, he speedily 
made his mark, in three Congresses of I'cmarkable ability, 
taking a position with the foremost, in the fervor of his patriot- 
ism, the clearness of his perceptions, the soundness of his judg- 
ment, and his eloquence as a debater, and at the close of his six 
years' service in the House of Representatives, though re-elected 
from his district, he was transferred by the Legislature of his 
native State, to a seat in the United States Senate, previously 
occupied by one of the most eminent jurists of New York. 

RoscOE CoNKLiNG (for it is he of whom we speak), was born 
at Albany, New York, October 30, 1829 ; he was a younger son 

of Hon. Alfred Conkling, a member of the XVIIth Congress, 
432 



HON. ROSCOE CONKLING. 483 

flnd subsequently judge of tbe United States District Court, for 
the Northern District of New York, for twenty-seven years, 
and in 1852-5, United States minister to Mexico ; he received a 
very thorough academic education in the Albany academy, and 
in 1846, removed to Utica, where he studied and practiced law, 
and when but twenty-one years of age, was appointed district 
attorney for Oneida county. In 1858, he was elected mayor 
of Utica, by a heavy majority. During the autumn of the same 
year, he was nominated for Congress from the twenty-first 
district, to succeed 0. B. Matteson. He was carried in by a 
large majority, and though the youngest member of the House, 
attained speedily to a very prominent position in that body, 
as a fearless, eloquent, and accomplished debater. He was re- 
elected in 1860, and still added to his reputation. He was 
chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia, and on a 
Bankrupt Law. In 1862, New York was so far faithless to her 
principles as to elect a Democratic Administration, Horatio 
Seymour, Mr. Conkling's brother-in-law, being chosen governor.; 
and a professed war Democrat, but real Copperhead, elected 
to Congress from the twenty-first district to the XXXVIIIth 
Congress. But the people of that district were dissatisfied, and, 
in 1864, they re-elected Mr. Conkling by a heavier majority 
than ever before. During the two years that he was out of 
Congress, Mr. Conkling was requested by the attorney-general 
to aid in the prosecution of some gross frauds which had been 
ccmmitt'cd in that district, in regard to the enlistments and 
bounties to soldiers. He entered upon the work with his tisual 
ardor and zeal, and succeeded in unearthing a most astounding 
system of frauds. By this act, he rendered a great service to 
the nation, for which he received the thanks of the War Depart- 
ment, but he had incurred the hostility of the " Ring," which 
determined thenceforward to crush him. The opportunity did 



4:84 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

not occur until the summer of 1866, wbeu, as he was uominated 
again for Congress, a man of large wealth, previously a Eepubli 
can, determined to run in opposition to him, and to defeat him, 
if it could be accomplished bj money. Mr. Conkling at once 
announced his intention to canvass the district in person, and 
did so, speaking in every village and town of the county, and 
was re-elected by an increased majority. The Republican 
Legislature which met in January, 1867, elected Mr. Conkling 
United States Senator for six years, from March 4, 1867, to 
succeed Hon. Ira Harris. In the Senate, Mr. Conkling has 
taken a high position, and is regarded as one of the most sub- 
stantial and able of the radical Senators. 

A single passage from one of Mr. Conkling's speeches, will 
serve to show his earnestness, the intensity of his convictions, 
and the ability with which he presents them. The occasion was 
this ; Tennessee had been restored to the Union, and her loyal 
Representatives and one Senator sworn in. The other Senator, 
Judge Patterson, a son-in-law of President Johnson, was, it Avaa 
thought, from the fact of his having, though a Union man, held 
office under the rebel government, unable to take the test oath 
prescribed for all Senators and Representatives, and the Senate 
had passed a joint resolution to omit in his case, from the test 
oath, these words : " That I have neither sought nor accepted, 
nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office v/hatever, 
under any authority, or pretended authority, in hostility to the 
United States." This resolution was immediately sent to the 
House of Representatives for their consideration. ^Nfessrs. May- 
nard and Ta3'-lor of Tennessee advocated it, and Mr. Stokes, 
also of Tennessee, and Mr. Conkling of New York, opposed it. 
The closing passage of Mr. Conkling's speech was as follows : 

" We are asked to drive a plough-share over the very 
foundation of our position ; to break doAvn and destroy the 



HON. EOSCOE CONKLING. 485 

bulwark by which wc ina}- secure the results of a, great war and 
a great history, by which wc may preserve from defilement this 
place, wliere alone in our organism the people never lose their 
supremacy, except by the recreancy of their Representatives ; a 
bulwark without which we may not save our Government from 
disintegration and disgrace. If wc do this act, it will be a 
precedent wliicli will carry fatality in its train. From Jefferson 
Davis, to the meanest tool of despotism and treason, ever}^ rebel 
may come here, and we shall have no reason to assign against 
his admission, except the arbitrary reason of numbers. I move, 
sir, that the joint resolution be laid on the table." It ivas laid 
on the table, by a vote of eighty -eight to thirty-one ; and the 
same day, Judge Patterson, having discovered that he could 
take the test oath, was sworn in by the Vice-President, and the 
joint resolution laid over forever. 



MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN A. LOGAN. 



rOHN ALEXANDER LOGAN, justly styled " the Murat 
of the Union army," was born near the present town of 
^^ Murphysboro, Jackson county, in Illinois, on the 9th 
^ of February, 1826. His father. Dr. John Logan, came 
from Ireland to Illinois, in 1823 ; his mother, Elizabeth Jenkins, 
was a Tennessean, and John was the eldest of their family of 
eleven children. Schools were scarce in Illinois, during his 
boyhood, so that he was indebted for most of his early education 
to his father, or to such itinerant teachers as chanced to visit 
the new settlement — and it was not until 1810, that he attended 
an academy, bearing the pretentious title of " Shiloh college." 
At the commencement of the Mexican war, young Logan, then 
in his twentieth year, volunteered, and was chosen lieutenant in 
a company of the first Illinois volunteers ; bearing a conspicuous 
part in the service of the regiment, of which, for a portion of 
the time, he was adjutant. Returning home in October, 1818, 
he commenced the study of law in the office of his uncle, 
Alexander M. Jenkins, formerly lieutenant-governor of Illinois, 
and while thus employed, was elected, in November, 1819, clerk 
of his native county, holding the office until 1850. During that 
year, he attended a course of law studies at Louisville, receiving 
his diploma in 1851, and commencing the practice of his pro- 
fession with his uncle. His practical mind, pleasing address, 
486 



MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN A. LOGAN. 487 

and rare abilities as a public speaker, speedily rendered him a 
general favorite, and, in 1852, he was elected prosecuting attor- 
ney of the then third judicial district, and established his resi- 
dence at Benton, Illinois. During the autumn of the same 
year, he was elected to represent Jackson and Franklin 
counties, in the State Legislature ; married in 1856 ; was chosen 
presidential elector for the ninth Congressional district, in May, 
1856, and in the following fall was re-elected to the Legislature. 
In 1858, the. Democracy of the ninth Congressional district 
elected him to Congress by a large majority, and rc-clcctcd him, 
again, in 1860. At the first intimation of coming trouble, he 
boldly asserted that, although he thought and hoped that Mr. 
Lincoln would not be elected to the presidency ; yet, if he were, 
he would " shoulder his musket to have him inaugurated." 
During the winter of 1860, his county having been thrown out 
of his old district and added to another, he removed his resi- 
dence to Marion, Williamson county, in order that he might 
still be in his district. 

In July, 1861, during the extra session of Congress, Mr. 
Logan, fired with the enthusiasm of the hour, left his scat, over- 
took the troops which were marching out of Washington to 
meet the enemy, joined himself to Colonel Richardson's regi- 
ment, secured a musket and a place in the ranks, and, at the 
disastrous battle of Bull Eun, fought with distinguished bravery, 
and was among the last to leave the field. Eeturning to his 
home, at Marion, in the latter part of August, he addressed his 
fellow-citizens, on the 3d of September, announcing his intention 
to enter the service of the Government, " as a private, or in any 
capacity in which he could serve his country best, in defending 
the old blood-stained flag over every foot of soil in the United 
States." His eloquence and high personal reputation rallied 
friends and neighbors around him, and, on the 13th of Septem- 



488 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

ber, 1861, tlie thirty-first Illinois volunteers was organized, and 
he was chosen colonel. The regiment was attached to General 
McClernand's brigade; and, seven weeks later, at Behnont, 
made its first fight, during which Colonel Logan had a horse 
shot under him, and his pistol, at his side, shattered by rebel 
bullets. He led the thirty-first, also, at Fort Henry, and, again, 
at Fort Donelson, where he received a very severe wound, 
which, aggravated by exposure, disabled him for some time 
from active service. Eeporting, again, for duty to General 
Grant, at Pittsburgh Landing, he was shortly after, Marcli 5th, 
1862, made brigadier-general of volunteers ; took a distinguished 
part in the movement against Corinth, in May, and, after the 
occupation of that place, guarded, with his brigade, the rail- 
road communications with Jackson, Tennessee, of which place 
he was subsequently given the command. 

In the summer of 1862, he was warmly urged by his numer- 
ous friends and admirers to become a candidate, again, for 
Congress, but declined in a letter of glowing patriotism, in 
which he said, — " I have entered the field to die, if need be, 
for this Government, and never expect to return to peaceful 
pursuits, until the object of this war of preservation has become 
a fact established." During Grant's Northern Mississippi cam- 
paign, 1862 and '63, Logan led his division, exhibiting great 
skill in the handling of troops, and was honored with a promo- 
tion as major-general of volunteers, dating from November 29th, 
1862. He was afterwards assigned to the command of the third 
division, seventeenth army corps, under General McPherson, 
and bore a part in the movement upon Yicksburg ; contributing 
to the victory at Port Gibson, and saving the day, by his 
desperate personal bravery. May 12th, at the battle of Eaymond, 
which General Grant designated as " one of the hardest small 
battles of the war ;" participated in the defeat and routing of 



MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN A. LOGAN". 489 

the rebels at Jackson, May 14tli, and in tLe battle of Cham- 
pion's Hill, May 16th. 

At tho siege of Vicksburg, he commanded McPherson's 
centre, opposite Fort Hill, the key to the rebel works, and his 
men made the assault after the explosion of the mine, June 25th. 
His column was the first to enter the surrendered city, on the 
4th of July, 1SG3, and he was made its military governor. His 
valor was fitly recognized in the presentation made to him, by 
the board of honor of the seventeenth army corps, of a gold 
medal, inscribed with the names of the nine battles m which he 
had participated. Having thoroughly inaugurated the adminis- 
tration of affairs at Vicksburg, he spent a part of the summer 
of 1863 in a visit to the North, frequently addressing large 
assemblages of his fellow-citizens, in speeches of fiery eloquence, 
and burning zeal and devotion to the cause of the Union. 

In November, 1863, he succeeded General Sherman in the com- 
I mand of the fifteenth arni}^ corps, spending the following winter 
at . Huntsville, Alabama; joining, in May, 1864, the Grand 
Military Division of the Mississippi, which, under General 
Sherman, was preparing for its march into Georgia. He led 
the advance of the Army of the Tennessee in the movement at 
Resaca, taking part in the battle which followed, and, still 
moving on the right, met and repulsed Hardee's veterans at 
Dallas, on the 23d of May; drove the enemy from three lines 
of works, at Kcnesaw Mountain, and again, on the 27th of 
June, made a desperate assault against the impregnable face of 
Little Kenesaw. On the 22d of Jul}"-, at the terrible battle of 
Peacb Tree creek, Logan, fighting at one moment on one side of 
his works, and the next on the other, was informed of the death, 
in another part of the field, of the beloved General McPherson. 
Assuming the temporary command, Logan dashed impetuously 
from one end to the other of his hardly-pressed lines, shouting 



490 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

" McPherson and revenge !" His emotion communicatv>d itself 
to the troops witli the rapidity of electricity, and eight thousand 
rebel dead left upon the field, at nightfall, bore mute witness to 
their love for the fallen chief and the bravery of his successor 
Conspicuous, again, at the obstinate battle of Ezra Chapel, 
July 28th, he and his troops co-operated in the remaining bat- 
tles of the campaign, until the fall of Atlanta, September 2d, 
when they went into summer-quarters. After a few months 
spent in stumping the Western States, during the presidential 
campaign of 186-i, General Logan rejoined his corps, at Savan- 
nah, Georgia, shared the fatigues and honors of Sherman's 
HKircli through the Carolinas, and, after Johnston's surrender, 
marched to Alexandria, and participated with his brave veterans 
in the great review of the national armies at Washington, May 
23d, being advanced, on the same day, to the command of the 
Army of tlie Tennessee, upon the appointment of General 
Howard to other duties. ' | 

In 1865, General Logan was appointed minister to Mexico, 
but declined the honor, and was elected to the XLth Congress, 
from the State at large, as a Republican, receiving two hundred 
and three thousand and forty-five votes, against one hundred 
and forty-seven thousand and fifty-eight, given for his Demo- 
cratic opponent. Lately, he has taken a prominent part, as one 
of the managers of the House, in the impeachment trial of 
President Johnson. 

Mentally, morally, and physically, Logan is a splendid speci- 
men of a man. An active, liberal, well trained mind, a noble, 
frank, and generous disposition, a heart full of honest impulse 
and jiatriotic devotion to the right, are joined to a well-knit, 
muscular frame, a strongly marked countenance, and a " pre- 
sence," which commands respect, and- challenges admiration and 
oonfidence. 



HON. HENRY J. RAYMOND. 




|ENEY JARVIS RAYMOND was born in the village of 
Lima, Livingston county, New York, on the 24th of Jan- 
uary, 1820. His father was a small farmer, a harcl-work- 
^ ing, frugal, conscientious man, enjoying among his 
neighbors a high reputation for integrity and sound judgment, 
and disposed to give his children the best education which his 
limited means would allow. The subject of this sketch seconded 
his father's wishes and efforts in this respect, partly by an entire 
inaptitude, physical and mental, for the severe labors of the 
farm — though he spent a good many days, in the earlier years 
of his life, in efforts to perform them — and partly by a very 
decided taste for reading and for study, which he took every 
opportunity to gratify. Like all men who accomplish any thing 
in life, he had a mother of more than common ability — of great 
clearness of judgment, directness of purpose, and firmness of 
character — and whatever of these qualities he has displayed, are 
doubtless inherited from her. Beginning at the district school 
in the immediate vicinity of his father's house, and continuing 
his English studies in the village academy, he began the study 
of Latin and algebra, in 1833, at the Genesee Wesleyan semi- 
nary, without any definite purpose as to his future course; but 
after spending six months in a village store, and three more iu 

teaching a district school at Scottsville, in Monroe country, pro 

491 



492 MEN" OF OUR DAY. 

cured for him by bis devoted school friend, Mr. Alexander IMann, 
afterwards editor of the ^'■Rochester Americavi!'' and the '■^Alhany 
Rerjisier^'' he entered the University of Vermont, in the summer 
of 1836, and graduated, at the head of his class in all branches., 
four years later. After spending some weeks in fruitless efforts 
to find a school, in the neighborhood of home, which needed hia 
services, he determined to try his fortunes in New York city, 
where the only two persons he had ever seen before were Mr. 
Mann, then a law student in Wall street, and Mr. Horace Gree- 
ley, whom he had but once met in Albany, and to whose weekly 
newspaper — the ^'■New Yorlter^^ he had been a frequent contribu- 
tor, mainly of literary criticism, during his college course. He 
entered at once upon the study of the law in the office of Mr. 
E. W. Marsh, but was compelled to devote a good deal of his 
time to earning a living, which he did by teaching a Latin class 
in a classical school, by writing for the ^'•Nexo Yovlcer^'' at first 
without any remuneration, and by that unfailing resort of lit- 
erary beginners in New York — correspondence with the country 
press. The first editor who engaged his services in that capacity 
■was Mr. E. D. Mansfield, then editor of the ^^ Cincinnati Chron- 
icle^^'' and since, perhaps, better known as the " Veteran Observer" 
of the " Neio York Times^''^ who paid him five dollars a week for 
daily news letters to his journal. Meantime,he received an offer 
of a school in North Carolina at four hni-idred dollars a year; 
but as Mr. Greeley offered him the same for his services on the 
"Veiy Yoi'ker,''^ he declined the first offer, and remained in New 
York. In April, 18-il, Mr. Greeley started the " Tribune,''^ and 
retained Mr. Eaymond's services, which at once became of a 
very miscellaneous character, as the staff of a newspaper at that 
day was by no means what it has since become. 

He immediately won distinction in this position by his extra 
ordinary intellectual activity, his indefatigable powers of appli- 



HON". HENRY J. RAYMOND. 493 

cation, liis readiness and dispatch, and his aptitude for every 
duty pertaining to the profession of a journalist. lie was 
equally ready at penning an editorial, or reporting a speech or 
lecture. At that time, the system of American newspaper 
reporting was iu a crude condition ; !Mr. liaymoud contributed 
largely towards correcting its imperfections and bringing it up 
to its present efficiency. Aside from his strictly editorial duties, 
he infused new life into this important department of journalism 
by the accuracy, the dispatch, and the literary excellence of his 
reports of public meetings, lectures, and political speeches and 
addresses. 

At about that time, Dr. Lardner delivered a series of popular 
lectures ou scientific subjects, which were soon after followed by 
another series, by Dr. Lyell, on geology, both of which were 
reported in full, with diagrams and illustrations, by Mr. Eay- 
raoud. for the " Trihune,''^ and as he was fresh from his colleoiate 
studios, and thus more familiar with the technical terms em- 
ployed in these lectures, he was able to give his reports a degree 
of accuracy and completeness which won them great popularity 
and no little distinction for himself. His industry was untiring 
and his devotion to his AV'ork incessant. Mr. Greeley, in the 
" Recollections of a Busy Life," which he has recently published, 
through the columns of the " Neiu York Ledger^'''' pays him a 
very high and emphatic compliment on this point. 

In 1843, Mr. Raymond quitted the " Tribune'^ to accept an 
editorial position on the New York " Gourier and Enquirer^'' con- 
ducted by Mr. James Watson Webb. This position he held 
until 1851, Avhen he resigned it, in consequence of a personal 
disagreement with the proprietor. Four years previously, he 
had proposed to Messrs. Harper & Brothers, whose "reader"' 
and literary adviser he had been for some years, to start a 
monthly magazine, which he edited from the beginning. His 



i94 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

cf;nuection with this lasted about ten years. "While Mr. Kay- 
mond was connected with the '■^Courier and Enquirer,^'' a sharp 
discussion sprang up in the public journals on the doctrine of 
Fourierism, which found a special champion in Mr. Greeley. 
Mr. Raymond espoused the adverse side, and a very spirited 
controversy on the subject ensued in the columns of their re- 
spective journals. The articles on both sides attracted much 
attention, and on the close of the discussion, they were collected 
and published in pamphlet form. 

Mr. Raymond's career as a public man, outside of journalism, 
commenced in 1849, in which year he was elected by the Whigs 
of his district to the State Legislature. He at once took a very 
high position as a practical legislator and a prompt and effective 
debater. Re-elected the following year, he was chosen speaker 
of the Assembly, and discharged the duties of the office with 
marked ability and acceptance. He took an active part in the 
business of the session, and especially interested himself in the 
cause of common-school education and in the canal policy of 
the State. 

In the spring of 1851, ]\Ir. Raymond visited Europe, for the 
first time, for the benefit of his health, and travelled exten- 
sively in England and on the Continent. He returned to this 
country in August, and on the 18th of September, of the same 
year, published the first number of the '■'■New York TimeSy'' a 
daily political newspaper, with which his name was to be thence- 
forth closely identified. The '■'■Times''' was then a folio sheet of 
less than half its present size. It was, from the start, conducted 
with signal ability, and at once took strong hold on public favor, 
At the end of the first year, it was enlarged to eight pages. 

In 1852, Mr. Raymond attended the Whig National Con- 
vention at Baltimore, and on the nomination of the New York 
delegation, applied for a seat as a substitute for a regular 



IIOX. IIEXKY J. RAYMOXD. 495 

delegate detained by sickness. Mr. Raymond being a supporter 
of General Scott, while the absentee, to whose place he had 
been appointed, was for Mr. Fillmore, a very sharp opposition 
to his admission arose, which grew into a very bitter personal 
controversy ; the southern delegates insisting on his exclusion, 
and a Georgia member having moved his expulsion for some- 
thing he was charged with having published in his paper. A 
personal collision sprung up between him and Mr. Cabell of 
Florida, — the latter resenting an expression Mr, Raymond 
had used, and declaring, with menacing tone and manner, 
that he " should not submit" to such language, to wliich Mr, 
Raymond replied, that he would submit to whatever, in contra- 
diction of such attacks as had been made upon him, he might 
choose to say. In connection with this personal collision, and 
in spite of strenuous and violent opposition to his being heard 
at all, Mr, Raymond made a strong and emphatic speech in expo 
sition and defence of the political sentiment of the North, in 
regard to the extension of slavery into the national territories, 
and the increasing magnitude of slave-power influences in the 
national government. The whole country was agitated at that 
time with the discussion of these grave questions, and Mr. Ray- 
mond's speech was regarded as indicative of the political policy 
which the North was thenceforth to adopt as its own. 

The defeat of General Scott, the Whig candidate for the 
presidency, in the fall of 1852, hastened the disruption of the 
party with which Mr, Raymond had acted; and that some 
other political organization, based on the living questions of 
the day, must take its place before another presidential cam- 
paign, was evident to all discerning minds. The temperance ques- 
tion was widely agitated, especially in New York State, and at 
the same time, the Know-Nothing furor was making a clean 
sweep in the eastern and some of the other States, In 1854, while 



496 MEN" OF OUR DAY. 

parties were still in their chaotic and formative staie, Mr 
Eaymond received the nomination for lieutenant-governor 
from the Whigs. The nomination was endorsed by the Anti- 
Nebraska, and the Temperance Conventions, and he was elected 
by a large majority over two opposing candidates. On the 
termination of his term of office, he declined the proffer of a 
nomination to the governorship of the State. 

On the final disruption of the Whig party, Mr. Eaymond 
took an active part in the movement that at length resulted in 
the consolidation of the free-soil elements in the Northern States 
into the political organization known as the Republican party. 
He drew up the first important political manifesto of the now 
party, an extended and elaborate vindication of the new move- 
ment, which was adopted on the 22d of February, 1856, by the 
Republican National Convention at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 
and published b}^ that body as an " Address to the people." 
During the ensuing campaign, he addressed many public meet- 
ings throughout the Northern States in favor of Colonel Fremont, 
the Republican candidate for the presidency, whom he also ably 
supported in the columns of his journal. 

In the summer of 1859, Mr. Raymond again visited Europe, 
and while in Italy witnessed the short and decisive campaign of 
the French against the Austrians. His account of the battle of 
Solferino, written on the spot during the progress of the action, 
was dispatched by a special courier to Havre, in season to catch 
the earliest mail for New York, where it arrived several days 
in advance of the English accounts. 

In the hotly-contested and memorable presidential campaign 
of 1860, Mr. Raymond bore a conspicuous part : and both in 
his journal, and at public meetings in the Northern States, 
warmly advocated the election of Abraham Lincoln. 

Mr. William L. Yancey, of Alabama, having made a series 
of able speeches through the North, intended to prepare the 



HON. HENRY J. RAYMOND. 491 

public mind for a secession movement, and to reconcile the people 
to its success, Mr. Eaymond in four letters, addressed to him, con- 
tested his position, insisting that any attempt at secession would 
involve the nation in a war, which would inevitably result in 
the overthrow of the movement and the ruin of the South. 

Through the same channels of public expression, he opposed 
the secession of the Southern States ; and was through the 
whole of the rebellion a firm, steadfast, consistent, and hopefal 
supporter of the war, and of the Government measures for the 
restoration of the Union. The record of his public career 
during those long and trying years, is most honorable to him as 
an earnest patriot, and sagacious statesman. From the fall of 
Fort Sumter under the guns of Beauregard, to the surrender 
of General Lee, he never lost heart nor bated a jot of hope. 
During the darkest period of that long struggle, he never 
ceased to animate the courage of the people with predictions 
of a favorable result ; and his firmness, sagacity, and unwavering 
courage, at times when to less sanguine minds the country's 
cause seemed to have fallen beyond redemption, contributed 
largely toward creating the popular sentiment that sustained the 
Government through the war. The value of these services 
cannot be over-estimated, and can be appreciated by those only 
who recall the days and weeks of intense public depression and 
di-sappointment that followed the terrible disasters sustained by 
our armies during the first three years of the greac struggle. 
His speech at "Wilmington, Delaware, delivered November 6th, 
1863, may be regarded as the key-note to his course during the 
war, and to his political action when the war was over. In 
that speech he maintained, with great force of argument, that 
the rebellion must be quelled, at any cost ; that the Union must 
be restored ; that the supremacy of the Constitution must bo 
ve-established over every foot of American soil ; that all 

thought of compromise was utterly idle and hopeless; that the 
32 



4:98 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

force by which alone the rebellion could be put down, must be 
wielded exclusively by the central Government, and that the 
administration must have the cordial and earnest support de- 
manded by the magnitude of the cause, in which the country 
was engaged. As he was addressing an audience in a slave 
State, he gave special attention to the charges brought against 
the Government, that the war, though professedly for the Union, 
was really waged for the abolition of slavery, and that upon the 
close of the war, the States would not be permitted to return 
to the Union, except under such conditions of inferiority, and 
such changed Constitutions and laws as Congress might impose. 
He maintained, on the contrary, that with the war, the attempt 
at secession would end ; that the failure of the war would be the 
failure of the attempt to go Out of the Union, and that Congress 
had no power, under the Constitution, to destroy the right of 
f.very Stato to make its own laws, and control its own affairs. 
He held and proved that this was the ground steadily held by 
Mr. Lincoln's administration, and that it must continue to be the 
position of the Eepublican party. From these views Mr. Ray- 
mond has never deviated. 

In 1861, Mr. Eaymond was again elected to the Assembly, 
and on the 7th of January following, was chosen Speaker by a 
large majority, his opponent being Hon. Horatio Seymour. 

In the fall of 1864, Mr. Eaymond was elected to the 
XXXIXth Congress, from the sixth Congressional district of 
New York, and took his seat on the 4th of December, 1865. 
His course in Congress was that of a moderate licpublican, 
equally opposed to the extreme Democrats and the extreme 
Eadicals. Mr. Raymond has not escaped the charge so fre- 
quently and so heedlessly brought against prominent statesmen 
in Europe and America, — that of political inconsistency: in no 
instance more unjustly than in his. A careful survey of his 
political course, from the beginning of the war to the present 



HON. HEXriY J. RAY^[OND. 499 

time, will show tliat he has constantly adhered to his settled 
convictions of right; that he opposed secession and upheld the 
national Government ; that he fully sympathized witli and sup- 
ported the lenient policy towards the conquered South, recom- 
mended by President Lincoln at the close of the war, and in hia 
place in Congress, as well as through the columns of his journal, 
urged the adoption of that policy in opposition to the measures 
proposed by Mr. Stevens, Mr. Sumner, and other radical Repub- 
licans. 

His first important speech in Congress was delivered on the 
22d of December, 1865, against Mr. Stevens's theory of " dead 
States." ]\[r. Raymond maintained that, as the several ordi- 
nances of secession were nullities, in direct conflict with the 
supreme law of the land, the Southern States had never been 
out of the Union. They had tried, by force of arms, to sever 
their relations with the national Government, and had failed, 
and their attempt ended Avith the surrender of their armies. 
Holding these views, he would exact of them all needed guaran- 
tees for their future loyalty to the Constitution and laws of the 
United States, and for the proper care and protection of the 
freedmen He would exercise a rigid scrutiny into the charac- 
ter and Jtoyalty of the men Avhom they sent to Congress. But 
he would seek to allay rather than stimulate the animosities 
and hatreds to which the war had given rise, and refrain from 
inflicting upon them a policy of wholesale confiscation. These 
views Mr. Raymond reiterated and elaborated in his reply to 
Mr. Shellabarger, January 29th 1866, when he contended that 
Congresss ought to regard the Southern States as having re- 
sumed, under the President's guidance and action, their functions 
of self-government in the Union, providing, however, for the 
admission of loyal Representatives and Senators to Congress, 
for the protection of the freedmen in all the rights of citizens, 



500 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

for the exclusion from Federal office of all the leading actors in 
the rebellion, and for such military measures as would ensure 
the peace of the Southern States during the period of settle- 
ment. In all the speeches made by Mr. Eaymond on the 
subject of reconstruction, these and similar views were constant- 
ly expressed and enforced with the power of language and 
felicity of illustration, characteristic of his oratory. Consistent- 
ly with these opinions he opposed the bill reported by Mr. 
Stevens, from the Reconstruction Committee, to provide mili- 
tary governments for the Southern States. He held that the 
measure was the abnegation of all attempts to protect the people 
of the South by the ordinary exercise of civil authorit}'. Since 
war. in every sense of the Constitution, in every sense of the 
law, had ceased in the Southern States, he would prefer the 
appointment of Civil Commissioners, by Congress, for each State, 
empowered to organize some sort of government, to be supported? 
if necessary, by the military forces. Such a plan, he thought, 
would be vastly preferable to the suspension of the writ of 
habeas corpus throughout the South, and the subjugation of the 
southern people to the military arm of the Government. 

Aside from the question of reconstruction, Mr. Raymond 
took an a -tive interest in the ordinary legislation of Congress. 
On the 10th of April, 1866, he brought the subject of the 
North American Fisheries before Congress, and called attention 
to the necessity of additional legislation to protect the rights 
and interests of American fishermen, imperilled by the abroga- 
tion of the reciprocity treaty with Canada. He was also strong- 
1}' in Hivor of an appropriation of $6,000,000 by Congress, to 
aid in the construction of a ship canal around Niagara Falls. 
Mr. Washburne's bill to revive the grade of General, with the 
understanding that it should be bestowed on Grant, enlisted 
his warmest sympathy and support. His speech in favor of the 



HON". HENRY J. RAYMOND. 501 

bill, delivered on the -itli of May, 1866, was regarded as one of 
his finest efibrts. lie took a prominent part in the debate on 
Mr, Morrill's Internal Eevenue bill ; and in a long and able 
speech, delivered May 7th, 1866, set forth the principles which 
he thought should govern all legislation on this subject. 

The project of a National Union Convention (held at Phila- 
delphia, August 14th, 1866,) was advocated and sustained by 
Mr. Eayniond. Believing that Congress did not fully represent 
the wishes of the country, in regard to the question of recon- 
struction, he favored the idea of appealing directly to the 
people for a more authoritative expression of their views. Con- 
sultation with eminent members of the Republican party, 
strengthened this belief. On the 18th of June, he took occasion 
to speak again on the conditional admission of the Southern 
States to representation in Congress, reiterating, in the most 
emphatic manner, the views he had already expressed, and main- 
taining the duty and the necessity of nationalizing the Repub- 
lican party, so as to give it the command of the sympathies of 
Union- loving men in every part of the Republic, and a broader 
base of liberality, that would enable it to hold a position before 
the people from which nothing could drive it. These views 
formed the basis of the call for the Convention, which was issued 
at "Washington, June 25th, 1866, by the Executive Committee 
of the Union National Club. It was signed by A. "W. Randall, 
J. R. Doolittle, O. H. Browning, Edgar Cowan, Charles Knapp 
and Samuel Fowler, and endorsed by James Dixon, T. A. Hen- 
dricks, Daniel S. Norton and J. W. Nesmith. The Convention 
was held at the time appointed, and was attended by delegates 
from all the States and Territories of the United States. The 
proceedings were enthusiastic and harmonious. An Address 
and Declaration of Principles, drawn up by Mr. Raymond, were 
unanimously adopted by the Convention. But the Republican 



502 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

party was suspicious of the movement, fearing a compromisft 
with the South, if not the surrender of some vital principle; 
and as few Kepublican journals of prominence gave it tlieir sup- 
port, it failed to exert any lasting influence on the councils of 
the party. Mr, Eaymond was vehemently assailed by the party 
journals for liis share in the movement, and accused of treachery 
to his principles and the party that placed him in office ; yet it 
is difficult for the impartial historian to discern sufficient grounds 
for this charge, or to discover any contradiction between the 
p]"inciples enunciated in the Philadelphia Address and those ex- 
pressed by Mr. Eaymond in all his speeches on reconstruction, 
in Congress, and advocated in the columns of his journal. 

Since his retirement from Congress, having declined the re- 
nomination which Avas pressed upon him by prominent men of 
both parties, Mr, Raymond has withdraAvn from active partici- 
pation in politics, and has devoted himself exclusively to his 
editorial duties. President Johnson offered him the mission to 
Austria, in 1867 ; but his name was sent to the Senate without 
his consent, and although he had informed the President that he 
could not accept the appointment. Mr. Raymond is in no strict 
flense of the word a party man, and he claims the right to act 
on all public questions in accordance with his own convictions, 
irrespective of party ties or party platforms. His tastes, his 
habits, are literary, and his culture is scholarly and liberal. 
Few men, even among editors, possess his facility in composi- 
tion. He perceives the points of a subject at a glance, thinks 
rapidly and clearly, and writes with extraordinary ease. Nor 
is his the fatal facility of mere words ; his editorials are always 
cleair, incisive, logical, and wholly free from the circumlocution 
which is the besetting sin of so many writers for the American 
press. He never overloads his ideas with words, and never uses 
words to conceal his meaning. His style is a model for every 



HON. HENRY J. RAYMOND. 503 

one wlio aspires to be a journalist— sharp, concise, unambiguous, 
yet not wanting in lightness and the graces of flmcy and of wit. 
Devoted to the interests of his journal, Mr. Eaymond has found 
but little leisure for other literary labors. He has written a 
biography of Abraham Lincoln, first published, in 12mo., in 
186-i. A second edition, so greatly enlarged as to be almost a 
new work, appeared the following year. Besides this, his publi- 
cations have been political speeches and literary orations. 

Mr. Bayraond's talents as a public speaker are of the very 
highest order. His enunciation is rapid, but perfectly distinct ; 
his voice clear and resonant, and his gesticulation easy and 
graceful. He possesses a rare faculty for the logical arrange- 
ment of his thoughts, and the proper division of his subject, 
without the labor of long preparation; and hence he rarely hes- 
itates for a word or phrase, even when speaking without notes. 
He is one of the few public speakers of this country who always 
draw an audience, whether the occasion be literary or political 



CORNELIUS VANDERBILT. 




HE name of Corxelius Vanderbilt is inseparably asso- 
ciated witli the commercial history of the country, 
with the rapid growth and development of our mer- 
cantile navy, and, more lately, with our great national 
railway interests. With a steadiness and rapidity almost 
romantic he has pushed his way to a position in which he wields 
an immense influence over the material interests of his native 
land, and his energy, enterprise, and genius, are recognized 
the world over. From his ancestors, who were of the good 
old Holland stock which, over two centuries ago, settled 
that portion of the New Netherlands now known as New 
York State, he seems to have inherited the sturdy Knicker- 
bocker habits of industry which have so remarkably charac- 
terized his career. His father, whose name was also Cornelius, 
was a well-to-do farmer on Staten Island, in New York harbor, 
the island being, at that time, divided into large estates which 
were generally farmed by their owners, with especial reference 
to the supply of the city markets. In those days, almost every 
Islander kept his own boat for the purpose of carrying his farm 
products to the city ; and as the inhabitants increased and more 
extended facilities for communication became necessary, Mr. 
Vanderbilt fell into the custom, at times, of conveying to New 

York those who had no boat of their own. O^at of this, and the 
504 



CORNELIUS VANDKKIULT. 605 

demand for some public and rc.^'ular communication, grew u}) a 
fcriy, wliicli he established in tlie form of a " perriauger," wliieli 
departed for the city every morning and returned every after- 
noon. To this farmer-ferryman was born, on the 27th day of 
]\[ay, 1794, a son, the subject of this sketch — and, even as a 
babe, full of voice, will, and muscle. As infancy merged into 
boyhood, these cliaracteristics developed more distinctly into a 
restless activity of mind and body which seemed to take a 
strongly practical turn. Old }xiths of thought and action, 
and the teachings of books and schools, were (much to the 
chagrin of his parents) neglected, and he intuitively sought 
to draw his knowledge from Nature herself, whose wondrous 
book, so full of infinite knowledge and suggestions, claimed all 
his thoughts and time, frequently even to the exclusion of his 
meals. At the age of sixteen he made his first step into the 
world of activity and independent life in which he Avas ulti- 
mately to hold so regal a sway. Living upon the Island, and 
being of necessity much u})on the water, he early developed a 
fondness for that kind of life, as affording the widest scojic for 
his ambition. He, naturally enough, wished to have a sail-boat 
of his own, and soon made known thQ desire to his father. 
Tninking him yet too young and inexperienced to have the 
sole control of a boat, his father sought to discourage him — 
but, finally, yielding to his importunate pleadings, he gave a 
qualified promise to furnish him with the necessary purchase- 
mone}^ provided he would accomplish a certain amount of 
work upon the farm. The " stent" given, w^as no slight affair, 
as the father probably intended by it to foil his son's project ; 
and the latter soon found that it would require more time than 
he could well afford to bestow upon it, with his enterprise 
delayed. The boy's wit, however, did not fail him in this 
emergency — in his father's absence he summoned to his aid all liis 



506 MEN OF 0U]{ DAY. 

young companions in the neigliborliooJ, with whom he was a 
favorite, and by their heartily-rendered assistance the allotted 
task was soon completed. Keporting the successful accomplith- 
ment to his mother, he claimed the reward — but was met with 
dissuasives, for her aversion to the proposed business was equal 
to that of her husband, liemonstrances, however, were use- 
less — and fearful lest his determined will, if thwarted in this 
matter, might lead him to the still more to be dreaded alterna- 
tive of running away to sea — the sum of a hundred dollars was 
placed in his hands. Quickly hastening to the Port Eichmond 
sliorc, lie at once purchased a boat, which he had previously 
Selected, joyfully took possession of his long coveted prize, and 
full of brilliant visions of future successes, set sail for home. 
But, alas, as the little boat, freighted with so many hopes, sped 
through the waves, it struck on a rock in the kills and the new 
Hedged captain was barely able to run his vessel ashore before 
she sank. Nothing daunted, however, the boy sought the 
needed assistance, speedily had the damage repaired, and, in a 
few hours later, brought his little craft, all safe and sound, 
alongside the Stapleton dock. He had now, in a measure, cut 
loose from his father's care ; and, as the owner and captain of a 
boat, had fairly launched upon life's broad sea, as a man of 
business. Older heads, and older and established reputations 
were to be competed with — and the boy-captain had the sense 
to see, and the courage to prove, that he who would make 
headway in the world's strife, must do so with stout heart and 
strong arm — working, not waiting, for coy Fortune's gifts, lie 
was no idler — straightway he made vigorous attempts to secure 
business, and met with extraordinary success. He soon found 
plenty of remunerative employment in carrying, to and from 
New Ym-k, the workmen employed upon the fortifications then 
m process of construction, by the General Government, upoR 



CORNELIUS VAXDERBILT. 507 

Statcn and Long Islands. Amid all his success, however, his 
iiinnly sinrit of independence Avas not saiislled until, by scrupu- 
I'.nis and daily saving, from his first earnings, he was ena- 
l-led to repay to his mother the hundred dollars she had given 
iiim. The boy had, indeed, taken hold of life in earnest- 
grasping its stern realities with a spirit far beyond his years. 
Among the self-imposed rules with which he sought to regulate 
his life, and whicli serve to show a fixedness of purpose as 
invariable as the circuit of the sun, was a determination to 
spend less every week than he earned. This careful manage- 
ment soon produced its legitimate results, and ere long he wag 
enabled to purchase another vessel of larger dimensions, and 
thus considerably to extend his business. And so he went on, 
until his eighteenth birthday found him part owner and captain 
of one of the largest perriaugers in the harbor of New York, 
and he shortly after became interested in one or two smaller 
boats engaged in the same business. His life, at this time, wag 
a most active one, spent almost entirely upon the water, carry- 
ing freight and passengers, boarding ships, and doing every 
thing which came to his hand. In addition to all this vigorous 
day-work, he undertook and continued, through the whole war 
of 1812, to furnish supplies b}'' night to one of the forts on the 
Hudson and another at the Narrows. It is said of him that 
" his energy, skill and daring became so well known, and his 
word, when he gave it, could be relied upon so implicitly, that 
Corneile, the boatman, as he was familiarly called, was sought 
after iar and near, when any expedition particularly hazardous 
or important was to be undertaken. Neither wind, rain, ice, 
nor snow ever prevented his fulfilling one of his promises. At 
one time during the war (sometime in September, 1813), the 
British fleet had endeavored to penetrate the port during a 
severe southeasterly storm, just before day, but were repulsed 



608 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

from Sandy Hook. After the cannonading was ovoi', and the 
garrison at Fort Richmond had returned to quarters, il was 
highly important that some of the officers should proceed to 
headquarters to report the occurrence, and obtain the necessary 
reinforcements against another attack. The stoi'm was a fe'ar- 
ful one ; still the work must be done, and all felt that there 
was but one person capable of undertaking it. Accordingly, 
Yanderbilt was sought out, and upon being asked if he could 
take the party up, he replied promptly : " Yes, hit I shall have 
to carry them under water 'part of the v:axj T They went with 
hiui, and wlien they landed at CulFce-IIouse slip there was not a 
dry thread in the party. The next da}- the garrison was re- 
inforced. 

Yanderbilt also showed, in these earlier daj-s, what he has 
frequently exemplified in his later life, that he was very tena- 
cious of his rights, and determined that no one should infringe 
them. On one occasion, during the same war, while on his 
way to the city with a load of soldiers from the forts at the 
Narrows, he was hailed by a boat coming out from the shore, 
near the Quarantine. Seeing an officer on board, young Yander- 
bilt allowed it to approach him ; but as it came nearer, he saw 
that it belonged to one of his leading competitors, "and that the 
owner himself was with the officer. Still he awaited their 
approach, preparing to defend himself in case of any unauthor- 
ized interference. No sooner, however, Avcre they alongside of 
his boat, than the officer jumped on board, and ordered the sol- 
diers ashore with him in the other boat, for inspection, etc. 
Young Yanderbilt, seeing that the whole afi'air was a trick to 
ti'ansfer his passengers to his competitor, at once told the officer 
that the men should not move, that his order should not be 
obeyed. The military man, almost bursting with rage, hastily 
drew his sword, as if about to avenge his insulted dignity, when 



CORNELIUS VANDERBILT. 509 

joiing Vanderbilt quickly brought liim, sword and all, to the 
deck. It did not take liim many rrjinutes more to rid himself 
of the oniocr and his companion, and quickly getting under 
way again, his soldiers were soon landed, without further 
molestation, at the Whitehall dock." 

These anecdotes serve to illustrate the character of the man. 
By this time young Vanderbilt's labors had placed him in a 
position where he could reasonably entertain the prospect of 
maintaining a family and home of his own, and, on the 19th of 
December, 1813, he married Miss Sophie Johnson, of Port 
Richmond, Staten Island, and the next year took up his resi- 
dence at New York. About the same time he became the 
master and owner of the new perriauger "Dorad," which was 
at that time the largest and finest craft of that kind in the 
harbor of New York; and, in the summer of 1815, he built, in 
connection with his brother-in-law, De Forest, a schooner 
named the "Charlotte," which was remarkably large for her 
day, and which, under command of De Forest, was profitably 
employed as a lighter, in carrying freights between numerous 
home ports. Thus, up to the year 1817, with varied experi- 
ence but unvarying success, Mr. Yanderbilt continued in this 
business, improving the construction of vessels and adding to 
his reputation among nautical ^nen, and with such profit that, 
in the four years preceding his twenty-third birthday, he had 
laid up the snug little sum of $9000 — hard won earnings. Yet 
his ambition was by no means satisfied. His comprehensive 
mind, ever on the alert to catch any thing new or valuable 
pertaining to his chosen profession, saw at an early date the 
inestimable advantages w^hich would ultimately accrue to the 
interests of commerce from the use of steam, which had but 
recently formed a new application to the purposes of naviga- 
tion. Happening to become acquainted with Thomas Gibbons, 



510 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

of New Jersey, a large capitalist, tlien extensively interested in 
the transportation of passengers between New York and Phila- 
delphia, he received from him an oft'er of the captaincy of a 
little steamboat, at a salary of one thousand dollars per year. 
This, to a man who had always been his own master, and who 
was then engaged in sufficiently lucrative business, presented 
but few inducements. But Vanderbilt's prophetic ken antici- 
pated the triumphs of steam, and he had resolved to participate 
in, if not direct them. He therefore accepted the profier, and 
assumed the command, in the fall of 1817, of a little steamer, sc 
small, that its owner soon re-christeued it as " The Mouse of the 
Mountain." In a few months he was promoted to the " Bellona," 
a much larger boat, just ready for her trial trip, and emploj^ed 
on the Philadelphia line, carrying passengers between New 
York and New Brunswick, to which place (after a temporary 
few months' stay at Elizabethport), convenience dictated the 
removal of his family residence. At that time, passengers en 
route for Philadelphia, stopped at New Brunswick over night, 
taking early stage next morning to Trenton, and thence boat to 
Philadelphia. The stage-house at which travellers stopped over 
night, was the property of Gibbons, whose management of it 
proved unfortunate, and who Avas, therefore, induced to offer it, 
rent free, to his new captain, shortly after his removal to New 
Brunswick, if he would, in addition to his other duties, take 
charge of it — its proper keeping being, of course, an indispen- 
sable condition to the prosperity of the whole route. Yander- 
bilt accepted the proposition, and, during the remainder of his ■ 
business connection with Mr. Gibbons, conducted it so success- 
fully that it became a source of considerable profit. In 1827, 
he hired of Mr. Gibbons the New York and Elizabethport 
Ferry, which, under two successive leases of seven years each. 
he managed so well as to prove very profitable, although pre- 



CORNELIUS VANDEEBILT. 511 

viously it had been unremuncrative. Twelve years had elapsed 
since he had entered Mr. Gibbons's employ ; and, during that 
time, his faithfulness, care, and persevering industry had so 
advanced the prosperity of the line that it was now netting, 
annually, the sum of nearly $40,000. Under his supervision, 
each new boat added to the line had been made better and 
fleeter than its predecessor, and his keen and fertile intellect 
was quick to make every new circumstance subservient to the 
interests of his employer and the improvement of steam 
navis;ation. 

To understand some of the difficulties with which Vanderbilt 
was surrounded, at the time he first became captain of the 
Bellona, we must recall the early history of steam navigation. 
It Avill be remembered that, in 1798, an act was passed by the 
Legislature of New York, repealing a previous act, and trans- 
ferring to Mr. Livingston, the exclusive privilege of navigating 
the waters of the State by steam. This act was from time to 
time continued, and Fulton was finally included in its pro- 
visions. In 1807, after the trial trip of the Clermont, the 
Legislature, by another act, extended this privilege, and in the 
following year, subjected any vessel, propelled by steam, to 
forfeiture, which should enter the waters of the State without 
the license of those grantees. These acts Avere in force when 
Vanderbilt entered the employ of Mr. Gibbons, and the Phila- 
delphia line violated the privilege thus granted, in case the 
boats stopped at the city of New York ; and hence, for a long 
time, whenever Vanderbilt ran a steamer in on the New York 
side of the river, as he was instructed by the owner to do, he 
was arrested, if he could be found. As an expedient to avoid 
arrest, he taught a lady how to steer the boat, and when it 
neared the New York dock, he would turn it over to her 
charge, and disappear himself; so that the officers were fre- 



512 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

quently compelled to return tlieir writs against him non est. 
At this time, it will also be remembered, the New York Court 
of Errors had pronounced these acts constitutional ; the Kew 
Jersey Legislature had passed retaliatory acts, and a suit 
against Gibbons was in progress in the United States Court. 
To make this line prosperous, under such difficulties, and 
against such opposition, was, of course, no ordinary task ; still 
it was at once accomplished, as we have stated. At length, and 
in 1824, the Gibbons's case was decided, Chief Justice Marshall 
delivering the opinion of the Court, to the effect, that, under 
the Constitution of the United States, no State could grant an 
exclusive right of navigation, by steam or otherwise, on any of 
the principal rivers of the country ; and, as a consequence, 
navigation of the Hudson, and elsewhere, became free to all. 
"With this obstacle removed, Vanderbilt went to work with 
renewed vigor, steadily pushing forward his employer's enter- 
prise, until it produced the remarkable revenue noted above. 

In 1829, Vanderbilt determined to commence business again 
on his own account, but met with the most strenuous ob- 
jections, and the most liberal inducements — even to the offer 
of the ownership of the entire Philadelphia route, on almost his 
own terms — from Gibbons, who confessed his inability to run 
the line without him. But these offers were firmly yet kindly 
put aside, and Gibbons, finding the life of his enterprise had 
gone, shortly after sold out the entire business. Once again 
Vanderbilt was his own master, and possessed such an intimate 
knowledge of the details and practical management of steam 
navigation, as placed him in a most favorable position for 
further usefulness and success. The next twenty years of his 
life we must sketch rapidly. Applying to his work, the same 
wisdom and energy which he had ever shown, he built, during 
•<his period, a very large number of steamboats, and established 



CORNELIUS VANDERBILT. 513 

steamboat lines on the Iludson, the Sonne! and elsewhere. Ilis 
plan "was to build bettor and faster boats, than those of his 
competitors, and to run them at the lowest paying rates. lie 
was thus enabled, by furnishing passengers with the best and 
cheapest accommodations, to distance the corporations and 
companies, whose monopoly of the carrying trade had hither- 
to made travelling too expensive to be enjoyed by the many. 
It cannot be claimed, that in every act, he sought the public's 
welfare, yet the great result of his " opposition" lines has been 
decidedly beneficial to the community, for commercial growth 
and rivalry are inseparable, and competition is, proverbially, the 
life of healthy trade. Meantime, the gold of California had 
been discovered, and was drawing an immense rush of trade 
thitherward. The Pacific Mail Steamship Company began to 
run its steamers in IS-iS, and in 18^9 the Panama railroad was 
surveyed and commenced. The same year, we find Mr. Yan- 
derbilt, under a charter obtained from the Nicarauguan govern- 
ment, for a ship-canal and transit company, seeking another 
transit route, in connection with which he could establish a 
competing line between New York and the " golden land." This 
charter was subsequently enlarged by the grant of an exclusive 
right to transport passengers and freight between the tAVO 
oceans, by means of a railroad, steamboats, or otherwise, and 
sepaiating the transit grant from the canal grant. In 1850, Mr. 
Yanderbilt built the Prometheus, and, in her, visited Nicaragua 
for the purpose of personally exploring the country, and satisfy- 
ing himself as to the practicability of the route. The harbor of 
San Juan del Sur, was fixed upon as the Pacific port — a little 
steamboat built, under his personal inspection, to run up the 
San Juan river — and finally, in the face of many obstacles, a 
semi-monthly line to California, via Nicaragua, was opened in 
July, 1851, and spee/'Iily became the favorite, as well as the 

33 



514: MEN OF OUR DAY. 

cheapest route to San Francisco. lu January, 1853, Vau'lerbilt 
sold his many and large steamers, on both sides, to the Transit 
Company, acting as their agent for several months — and then 
his connection with it ceased, until he became its president in 
January 1856. During the invasion of Nicaragua by "Filibuster 
Walker," that general, to whom Vanderbilt had refused transpor- 
tation for his men and munitions, issued a decree (February, 
1856,) annulling all grants to the company, as well as its act of 
incorporation ; and, when the long series of plots and counter- 
plots to which this gave rise were settled, a sand-bar was found 
to have formed at the mouth of the San Juan, making it practi- 
cally useless. Mr. Vanderbilt had become a man of great wealth, 
and, in 1853, he conceived the novel, and, in some respects, 
grand design of making the tour of Europe, with his family, in 
a fine, large steamship of his own. 

For a single individual, without rank, prestige, or national 
authority, to build, equip, and man a noble specimen of 
naval architecture, and to maintain it before all the courts of 
Europe, with dignity and style, was an extremely suggestive 
illustration to the Old World, of what the energies of man may 
accomplish in this new land, where they are uncramped by 
oppressive social institutions, or absurd social traditions. 
Cornelius Vanderbilt is a natural, legitimate product of 
America. "With us, all citizens have full permission to run 
the race in which he has gained such large prizes, while in 
other countries, they are trammelled by a thousand restrictions. 

Accordingly, a new vessel, called " The North Sar," was 
built, as all his vessels are, under his own supervision, in a 
very complete manner, perfect in all its departments, and 
splendidly fitted up with all that could tend to gratify or please, 
and was the first steamer fitted with a beam engine, that ever 
attempted to cross the Atlantic. 



CORNELIUS VANDERBILT. 515 

On Friday, the lltli of May, 1855, tlic commodore and his 
party set sail. In almost every country visited they were re- 
ceived by all the authorities with great cordiality, as well as 
great attention. At Southampton, the North Star formed the 
topic of conversation in all circles, and the party was honored 
with a splendid banquet, at which about two hundred persons 
sat down. When in Russia, the Grand Duke Constantine and 
the chief admiral of the Russian navy visited the ship. The 
former solicited and obtained permission to take drafts of it, 
which duty was ably performed by a corps of Russian engineers. 
In Constantinople, in Gibraltar, and Malta, the authorities were 
also very cordial and polite. But in Leghorn (under the 
government of Austria) the vessel was subjected to constant 
surveillance, guard boats patrolling about her day and night— 
the authorities not being able to believe that the expedition waa 
one of pleasure, but imagining that the steamer was loaded with 
munitions and arms for insurrectionary purposes. Thus, after 
a very charming and delightful excursion of four months, they 
returned home, reaching New York, September 23d, 1853, 
having sailed a distance of fifteen thousand miles. This cer- 
tainly was an expedition worthy and characteristic of the man 
who undertook it, and met with that decided success which his 
efforts ever seem to insure. 

Mr. Yanderbilt's observations, while abroad, satisfied him of 
the necessity of largely increasing the facilities of communica- 
tion between Europe and America; and, soon after his return, 
he made an offer to the Postmaster-General to run a semi- 
monthly line to England, alternating with the Collins line, 
carrying the mails on the voyage out and home for fifteen 
thousand dollars. The Cunard line was at that time withdrawn 
from the mail service on account of the Crimean war, and his 
plan, therefore, was to provide for weekly departures, filling up 



616 MEN OF OUE DAY. 

those thus left vacant. This proposition, however, was not 
accepted; but unwiUing to abandon the idea, on the 21st of 
April, 1858, he established an independent line between New 
York and Havre. For this purpose he built several new steam- 
ships, and among them the Ariel, and finally the Vanderbilt, 
and the line was kept up with great spirit and success. Subse- 
quent to the building of the Vanderbilt, there was an exciting 
contest of speed between the boats of the different lines. The 
Arabia and Persia, of the Cunard, the Baltic and Atlantic, of the 
Collins, and the Vanderbilt of the independent line, were the 
competitors. Great interest was taken in the contest, as all 
will remember, but the Vanderbilt came out victorious, making 
the shortest time ever made by any European or American 
steamer. 

The subsequent history of this vessel, and the use which is 
now being made of it, are well known. In the sjjring of 1862, 
when the administration needed, immediately, large additions 
to its navy, to aid in carrying on its military operations (an 
occasion which many were eager to turn to their own advantage, 
at their country's expense), Commodore Vanderbilt made free 
gift of this splendid ship, which had cost $800,000, to the 
Government. For this magnificent act of patriotism he re- 
ceived, in January, 1864, a resolution of thanks passed by 
Congress, and approved by the President, and a gold medal, 
a duplicate copy of which was also made and deposited for pre- 
servation in the library of Congress. 

Commodore Vanderbilt (he ^v•as long since given the title ot 
commodore by acclamation, and as the creator and manager of 
80 large a fleet, he surely merited it) has, during his long career 
of activity, built and owned exclusively himself, upward of one 
hundred steamboats and sliips — none of which have been lost 
bj accident. He has extensive machine-shops, ivhere the 



CORNELIUS VANDERBILT. 517 

machinery is made according to his own ideas, and his vessels 
have generally been constructed by days' work, under his 
constant supervision and from plans entirely his own. It is his 
practice, also, to employ the most deserving and trustworthy 
commanders, and never to insure a vessel or cargo of any kind, 
believing that " good vessels and good commanders are the best 
kind of insurance ;" and also that, " if corporations can make 
money in the insurance business, he can." 

For the past four or five years. Commodore Vanderbilt has 
been gradually withdrawing from his marine enterprises, and 
concentrating his energies and his vast capital and influence 
upon railroads, and with the result which has usually attended 
his movements. He is to-day emphatically the railroad king, 
and his power has not yet culminated. More than this, his 
gigantic undertakings, far surpassing in magnitude those of the 
English railway kings, have already exerted so controlling an 
influence that Wall street trembles at the liftinsr of his hand, 
and he might well write himself, after the fashion of the 
Abyssinian prince, " king of the kings of Wall street." Begin- 
ning in 1864: with the control of the Harlem railroad, previous- 
ly an unprofitable concern, and the foot-ball of the speculators, 
but under his care and energy soon made to earn and pay 
dividends, he soon reached out for the Hudson Eiver railway, 
and taking the presidency of both, ran them and managed them 
for the benefit of the stockholders. In 1867, he acquired a 
controlling interest in the New York Central, the largest and 
most influential of our great trunk roads, and took the presi- 
dency of that also. He is now moving with his usual skill and 
adroitness to obtain the sole direction of the Erie railway and 
is certain, if he lives, to accomplish it by next autumn, and will 
tlien have under his sway railroad lines whose aggregate 
capital invested is nearly one hundred millions of dollars, with 



618 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

a potent influence over a liuudred million more of railway 
property. Had be ten years more of active life, we might 
expect to see him Lord Paramount from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific. 

Yet amidst his close and continued application to the busi- 
ness of life, the kindly feelings of childhood have remained 
unchanged. The eagerness with which he has anticipated 
every desire of an aged mother, is only an evidence of the 
heart within him. He was as devoted to her in manhood, as 
she to him in early youth. The pretty home-like cottage con- 
structed for her under his eye, and in accordance with the taste 
of both, surrounded by luxuriant vines and evergreens, was a 
continual joy to her during her life. There, near her old home, 
and overlooking the water, the scene of his early exploits, she 
happily lived, tenderly cared for, and, only a few years since, 
as happily and peacefully died. How consistent with all his 
conduct toward her was the thoughtfulness which prompted 
him, upon returning from his triumphal tour of Europe, to 
stop the steamer in passing up the bay, and give that mother 
his first greetings, and receive her welcome home. Few, as 
they read, at that time, the newspaper accounts of his arrival, 
could have failed to notice, among the more exciting items, the 
statement of this simple fact, and to feel that it was an honor to 
the son as well as to the mother. 

The same kindliness of feeling he has always exhibited in 
every other position in life. Deceit and underhand dealing he 
has ever quickly detected and thoroughly hated, but frankness 
and honesty of speech and act have been sure to find a ready 
and kind response. During all his contests with men, he had 
exemplified the truth of this, ever being ready to act with the 
greatest generosity, when thus approached. A certain captain, 
interested in a line of boats to Hartford, took steps which 



CORNELIUS VANDERBILT. 519 

Vanderbilt considered dishonorable, to injure Lis line of boata 
to the same place, and therefore Vanderbilt determined to run 
him off, and did it. About that time Captain Brooks, who is an 
intimate friend of the commodore, met the defeated party 
and asked him how he got on. " Why, I have put my hand 
in Yanderbilt's mouth, and of course I must give up," he 
replied. "But," said Brooks, "go and see him, and if you are 
frank to him, he will be generous to you." "Go!" said he, 
" he would not see me." Yet afterwards he concluded to t-o, 
and sure enough, he came back not only with the difficulty 
healed, but with obligations conferred, which he will very long- 
remember. 

Six feet in height, with a large strong frame, a bright clear 
expressive eye, thin white hair, and ruddy complexion, Mr. 
Vanderbilt combines in his temperament a perfect blending of 
the best vital motive and mental characteristics. Ilis will, 
self-reliance and ambition to achieve success are immense, 
while integrity, self-respect and kindness of heart are not less 
strongly marked. Socially, he is one of the most affectionate 
of men. He is quick to read the characters and motives of 
others; forms his own judgments with intuitive quickness and 
correctness; executes his plans with rapidity and a conscious- 
ness of self-power. With such mental and vital characteristics, 
with or without education, the "Commodore" would, almost 
inevitably, have been at the head of any calling or profession 
which he might have adopted. Nature created him for a 
leader. 



ABIEL ABBOT LOW, 

PRESIDENT OF THE NEW YORK CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. 



^<t E ACE, said Mr. Sumner, in one of his most classic and 
I eloquent orations, " hath its victories no less than war." 
t (f^T, The merchant prince, whose enterprise has included with- 
dn> in its grasp the traffic of the far distant lands of the orient, 
whose ships are on every sea, and who brings to his bursting 
warehouses, the products of all climes, has really achieved as 
great a triumph, and one far more beneficial and bloodless, 
than the warrior who has led his conquering legions over 
desolated homes, and amid the ruins of sacked cities. And if 
this. peaceful hero uses his wealth as wisely as he lias acquired 
it, and by his large beneficence makes thousands and tens of 
thousands happy, then is his victory greater than that of any 
leader of a marshalled host, whose garments are stained with 
blood, for his triumphs are over the forces of nature, and the 
selfish and unhallowed passions of men, and " greater is he that 
ruleth his own spirit, than he that taketh a city." 

Among these heroes in the bloodless strife, Mr. Low is 
entitled to a high place of honor. During a long commercial 
life of wonderful success, and filled with great enterprises, he 
has ever maintained an enviable reputation for the highest 
honor and principle, and no unworthy deed or word has ever 
linked itself with his name. More than this, in all great mea- 
sures of benevolence, whether for aiding the poor of New 



ABIEL ABBOT LOW. 521 

York or Brooklyn, sustaining the government in putting down 
the rebellion, providing bounties for the soldiers, and supplies 
for the regiments, or succoring the families of our bravo 
defenders, sending aid to the famishing sufferers of Lancashire, 
sustaining the Sanitary Commission in its noble work, manifest 
ing the grateful emotions of the commercial class toward the 
leaders of our army and navy, establishing and endowing 
libraries and scientific institutions, or in the more direct pro- 
motion of the interests of religion. Mr. Low's contributions 
have always been among the most liberal. Other citizens of 
New York possess larger wealth than he, but none have made 
a more admirable and beneficial use of it. 

Abiel Abbot Low was born in Salem, Afassachusetts, we 
believe, in 1796. His father, the late Seth Low, was himself 
an eminent merchant, and soon after Abiel had reached his 
majority, removed to New York, and made Brooklyn his place 
of residence. The house of Seth Low and Company, (after- 
wards Seth Low and Sons,) had, both in Salem and New York, 
been largely engaged in the China and East India trade, and it 
was not, therefore, surprising that Mr. Low should have desired 
to visit China, and acquire a knowledge of the business there, in 
which so many fortunes had been made. His excellent early 
business training, and the remarkable capacity for great enter- 
prises, which he had early manifested, rendered him peculiarly 
adapted to attain success in this position. Soon after his arrival 
in China, he received the offer of a partnership in the well 
known house of Russell and Company, of Canton, and accepted 
it in 1833. His connection with this house continued till 1841, 
and sometime before that date, he had come to be its head. He 
returned to the United States in 1841, and established with his 
two brothers the great China house of A. A. Loav and Brothers, 
retaining their correspondents in China. Under his wise and 



522 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

able management, this lias been for several years past the 
leading American bouse in the China trade. Its traffic in all 
descriptions of Chinese goods is enormous. Ships freighted 
with the teas, silks, crapes, nankeens, lacquered wares, ginger, 
porcelain, rice, and mattings of the flowery kingdom, are con- 
stantly arriving in New York, and others departing laden with 
such goods as the Chinese require in their trade. Of late years 
this trade is not, to the extent it was formerly, the payment of 
silver on our part, and the delivery of their goods in exchange 
for that alone. Cotton goods, clocks, ginseng, and a yearly 
increasing list of our manufactured goods are taken by the 
Celestials in exchange for their products. 

Within a few years past, the Messrs. Low have turned their 
attention also to the Japan trade, and in the beginning of 1867, 
Mr. Low having visited San Francisco, sailed thence to Hong 
Kong and Yokohama, in the first steamship of the China mail 
line, and after establishing a branch house at the latter point, 
returned by the overland route to Europe, and thence home. 

During the war, few men in this country were as liberal, as 
patriotic, as judicious in their benefactions, and as wise in their 
counsels as Mr. Low. He lost heavily through the jiirutical 
conduct of the Confederate cruisers, several of his richly laden 
ships beiug seized, plundered and burned by those ocean 
marauders, Semmes and Maffit ; but amid all these losses, he was 
ever ready to aid the Government in every emergency, and to 
respond promptly to all its demands for counsel and encourage- 
ment. Li that noble offering of aid by our merchants to the 
famine stricken operatives of Lancashire, Mr. Low not only 
contributed largely, but acted as treasurer of the committee, 
and at no small personal inconvenience, kept its accounts, made 
its purchases, and transmitted its statements to the committee 
in England 



ABIEL ABBOT LOW. 523 

The New York Chamber of Commerce, the most emiuent 
body of American merchants on this continent, have twioe 
called Mr. Low, the last time by acclamation, to preside over 
their deliberations for the year, and would have continued him 
in that high position for a succcsfion of yeai's, but for his 
absence from the country in 1867. Tliis honor, so freely ac- 
corded, shows the estimation in which he is held by tho.se who 
know him best for sound judgment, remarkable foresight, in- 
corruptible principle, and the highest executive ability. His 
action, and his words of cheer in the dark hours of our national 
history, and the critical condition of commercial affairs, and 
his skill in the management of the grave and often delicate 
and difficult topics which came up for discussion before the 
chamber during this eventful period of its history, fully 
justified the confidence which was reposed in him. 

In all matters appertaining to the encouragement of art, 
literature, and higher education, as well as in all the charitable 
institutions of the citj'^ State, and nation, Mr. Low's aid is con- 
stantly sought, and never in vain in a worthy caut^e. The 
institutions of religion find in him a zealous and consistent 
supporter. In private life, that true manliness of deportment, 
that scorn of every thing base and mean, and that genial and 
kindly nature, which have always characterized him in public, 
find still more adequate and complete expression, and m the 
bosom of his family, he ever finds his highest happiness. 



^ 
^ 






■>^ 



JAY COOKE, 

BANKER AND FINANCIER. 



'N the times that tried men's souls," the dark days of our 
revolutionary epoch, there was a time when there was 
the greatest possible danger that the sufferings, the 
bloodshed, and the sacrifices of our patriotic heroes, 
might all fail of accomplishing our independence, from the 
want of the sinews of war, the means of paying the troops, of 
supplying rations, clothing, arms, and ammunition. At this 
crisis, when the treasury of the confederation was bankrupt, 
and there seemed no more room for hope, a Philadelphia 
banker, Robert Morris by name, came forward, and taking upon 
his own shoulders the financial burden of the nascent republic, 
obtained for it, by the pledge of his own credit and private re- 
sources, the aid it could not otherwise command. 

To this noble, self-sacrificing patriot, as much perhaps as to 
any other man of the revolutionary period, not less even than 
to Washington himself, do Ave owe it, that we are not, to this 
day, dependencies of the British crown. 

In our second war of independence, so recently passed, a war 

which has had no parallel in ancient or modern times, in the 

extent of the forces brought into the field, or the vast scale of 

its expenditure, we had at one time drawn fearfully near the 

vortex of national bankruptcy. Our currency was greatly 
5'24 



JAY COOKE. 52(> 

do]U'.^ci;itc'l, the paper dollar being at one time worth, iu the 
UKiiket, hut about thirty-six cents in coin, and the prices of all 
goods of permanent value being inflated to such an extent as 
to alarm the cautious, and portend speedy ruin. Meantime the 
exigencies of the war demanded a constantly increasing force in 
the field, and the expenditure of the Government, mainly for 
the army and navy, was enlarging till it approached three mil- 
lions of dollars a day. 

At this juncture, when the ablest financial secretary who ever 
controlled the national treasury was almost in despair, another 
Philadelphia banker. Jay Cooke by name, brought to the aid 
of the Government his enterprise, financial skill and extensive 
credit, and undertook for a pittance which, if he had failed of 
complete success, would not have been sufficient to have saved 
him from utter ruin, to negotiate and sell a loan of five hundred 
millions of dollars, an amount which would have staggered the 
Rothschilds. He not only accomplished this, but subsequently, 
to meet the pressing wants of Government, sold eight hundred 
and thirt}^ millions more. More fortunate than Mr, Morris, in 
that he did not, in the final result, lose his own fortune, but by 
the extraordinary enterprise he manifested, paved the way for 
other and more profitable undertakings with private corpora- 
tions, Mr. Cooke yet manifested a spirit as truly patriotic as 
Mr. Morris, and like him, is entitled to the honor of rescuing 
the nation from threatened bankruptcy. 

The Cooke family trace their lineage back to Francis Cooke, 
one of the godly and goodly men who Formed the company which 
landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in the Mayflower, in 1620, 
and who erected the third house built in Plymouth, Of his 
descendants one branch emigrated to Connecticut, and another 
to northern New York, From the latter stock, some of the 
descendants Df which are still living in Granville, Washington 



526 MEN' OF OUR DAY. 

county, New York, came "the father of Jay Cooke, Eleutheros 
Cooke, an eminent lawyer and political leader of northern Ohio. 

Eleutheros Cooke was born in Middle Granville, New York, 
received a collegiate education, studied law, and after practicing 
for a few years in Saratoga and its vicinity, removed, with 
a company of his neighbors, to the vicinity of Sandusky, 
Ohio, in 1817. Here he speedily attained distinction in his 
profession, ranking as the leading lawyer of that part of the 
State, and being the first Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of 
Ohio. An active and influential Whig, he was elected to 
numerous positions of trust and honor, was the representative 
of his district in the State Legislature for many years, and in 
1831 was elected to Congress. 

In his early candidacy for the State Legislature he found his 
name (Eleutheros) a great disadvantage ; the illiterate Germans 
of Seneca county could not comprehend, or write it correctly, 
and he was at one time defeated, by the throwing out by 
Democratic judges of a thousand ballots for defective spelling. 
He determined thenceforward to give his children short and 
simple names. His eldest he called Pitt, after the great English 
minister ; the second. Jay, after our illustrious chief justice, a 
third, Henry, and so on. 

Jay Cooke, the second son of this family, was born at Port- 
land (now Sandusky), Huron county, Ohio, August 10, 1821. 
His early education was obtained at home, for there were few 
good schools in that region at that early period. But though it 
was home teaching, it was none the less thorough on that 
account. Mr. Cooke was very anxious to have his children 
well educated. When at home, he instructed them himself, 
and when absent, his wife, a well educated lady, undertook the 
work. In his more distant legal or political excursions, when- 
ever he found a book store, he laid in a stock of books for the 



JAY COOKE. 527 

honsehold at liome. The boys were all quick to learn, and 
made progress in their studies. During Mr. Eleutheros Cooke's 
term in Congress, there was a very general time of financial 
pressure in tlie West, and on liis ret\irn home, he found his 
affairs considerably embarrassed, and became somewhat de- 
pressed. Standing in his door one day, and seeing his three 
bo3^s coming home from school, (for there was at this time a 
school of some merit in Sandusky,) he went to meet them, and 
putting his arms around tliem, said, half sadly and half in jest, 
" My boj'^s, I have nothing left for you ; you must go and look 
out for yourselves." The elder and the younger remained silent 
and downcast, but Jay, then about thirteen years of age, look- 
ing up in his father's face with great earnestness, said, " Father, 
I am old enough to work. I will go and earn for myself." Mr. 
Cooke did not regard this remark as any thing more than an 
expression of the boy's affectionate and enterprising nature, and 
as he had no intention of turning either of his boys out, at that 
time, to earn their own living, he thought no more of it. But 
the next day, when the other boys went to school, Jay slipped 
away, and went to the store of a Mr. Hubbard, in Sandusky, 
and asked him to, employ him as a clerk. Mr. Hubbard, who 
was doing a thriving business, happened to be just then in want 
of a clerk, having dismissed his only one a few days before, for 
dishonesty. Jay was a favorite of his, and admiring his artless- 
ness and resolution, he forthwith employed him. 

That night, when Mrs. Cooke reproached the boy for playing 
truant, he replied, with a flush of noble independence, " Why, 
mother, I won't be a trouble to you any longer ; I am now 
earning for myself." 

The parents, after consultation, determined to let Jay work 
out his own destiny, and the next day, and every day thence- 
forward, the boy was at his place promptly, and proved so faith 



628 MEN" OF OUR DAY. 

ful, intelligent and apt as a salesman, and was so ready and 
quick at figures, that his employer formed a strong attachment 
for him, taught him book-keeping, and instructed him in other 
branches which he had failed to acquire at school. 

After some time, Mr. Hubbard's partner left him for a long 
journey, and Mr. Hubbard himself fell sick, so that the whole 
care of the store came upon Jay. He attended to it faithfully, 
and at evening took the keys and the day's receipts to his sick 
employer, with whom he staid usually through the evenings. 
After he had been eleven months in Mr. Hubbard's employ, a 
Mr. Seymour who was about starting in business in St. Louis, 
prevailed on him to go with him to that city as clerk and book- 
keeper. The enterprise did not prove successful, and at the end 
of about nine months Seymour and Jay Cooke returned to 
Sandusky. While the latter remained at home for a time, 
awaiting a position, he attended an excellent school, in Avhich 
he devoted his attention almost exclusively to algebra and the 
higher mathematics. In these he soon excelled. His only 
amusement was fishing, among the islands of Sandusky bay, 
a pastime which he still enjoys witn all a boy's enthusiasm. 
After a few months of close application, his brother-in-law, Mr. 
William G. Moorhead, then, as since, largely engaged in rail- 
road and canal enterprises, and residing in Philadelphia, visited 
Sandusky, his former home, and perceiving young Cooke's 
proficiency in mathematical and mercantile studies, offered him 
the position of book-keeper in his ofiice. Jay accepted and 
spent a year in Philadelphia, when the firm was dissolved, and 
Mr. Moorhead received the appointment from the Government, 
of consul to Valparaiso. 

Jay returned to Sandusky and entered the school again, when 
his father received a letter from Mr. E. W. Clark, of E. W. Clark 
& Co., a leading banking firm of Philadelphia, asking permis- 



JAY COOKE. 529 

sion to take his son, Jay, of whom the firm had had very 
■favorable accounts, into their establishment and give him a 
thorough training as a banker. The father, after some hesita- 
tion, decided to send his son to Philadelphia, and this proved 
the turning point in his fortune. The house of E. W. Clark 
& Co., was one of high reputation for probity and honor, and 
had its branches in Boston, New York, New Orleans, St. Louis, 
and Burlington, Iowa. It was at that time, and for several 
years, the largest domestic exchange banking house in the 
United States. 

Though not quite seventeen years old when he entered chis 
house. Jay Cooke soon impressed the partners so favorably by 
his earnest zeal to understand thoroughly the whole business 
of finance, and his careful attention to business, tliat he was, for 
some time before he became of age, entrusted with full powers 
of attorney to use the name of the firm. An act of kindness 
thoroughly characteristic of him, at this time, was, during the 
war, perverted into an occasion of slander and abuse. It was 
stated by some of the daily papers in New York and elsewhere 
that he was of low origin, an obscure western banker, and that 
while in Philadelphia he had been bar tender to a third rate 
tavern. There was hardly the faintest shadow of truth, to 
serve as the basis of those preposterous stories. He was never 
a western banker in his life, but as we shall show presently 
had been for twenty-five years a member, and the real head of 
one of the largest banking houses in the country ; he was from 
an honored and distinguished family in northern Ohio, and his 
only connection with a hotel in Philadelphia consisted in the 
flict, that, during his first residence there, he boarded with an 
excellent family who owned a small hotel, and who were very 
kind to him during his stay. On his return he again took a 

room with this family, and finding that the worthy landlorrl 
3i 



530 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

Avho was somewhat advanced in years and "in feeble healtli, waa 
in some financial difficulty, and had been obtaining heavy loans' 
of Messrs E. W. Clark & Co., who had at last became apprehen- 
sive of his solvency, he persuaded the old man to let him 
examine into his condition. He found that he was nearly 
insolvent, and that he had been plundered by dishonest bar- 
tenders and book-keepers. He accordingly volunteered to 
make up his cash account for him every night, when he came 
from his office, and to do this was under the necessity of enter- 
ing his bar. lie continued this kind service till the death of 
his old friend, and had the happiness of knowing that he had 
retrieved for him a part at least, of his fortune. For this he 
was sneered at, as a bar-keeper. 

At the age of twenty-one (in 18-i2), he became a partner in 
the house of E. W. Clark & Co., and remained in it until 1858, 
being for the greater part of that time its active business 
manager, and much of the time its real head. During this time 
Government had issued several loans, to which the firm had 
largely subscribed. In 1840, when but nineteen years of age, 
Mr. Cooke had written the first money article ever published 
in a Philadelphia paper, and for a year continued to edit the 
financial column, o^ the Daily Ghronicle^ one of the three journals 
in the country, which then had a daily money article. On his 
retirement from the firm of E. W. Clark & Co., in 1858, Mr. 
Cooke had amassed a comfortable fortune, and had purposed 
to live thenceforth more at his ease. He still, however, nego- 
tiated large loans for railroad and other corporations, and 
attended, in a quiet way, to other financial operations. 

At the commencement of 1861, Mr. Cooke formed a jDartner- 
ship with his brother-in-law, Mr. "William G. Moorhead, in the 
banking business, und6r the firm name of Jay Cooke k Co. 
'['he object of both partners was to provide business openings 



JAY COOKE. 531 

for their sons. Mr. Moorhead brought to the firm a long and 
Buccessful experience in raih-oad matters. In the spring <>{' 
18G1, Avhen the Government souglit to place its first loan, the 
firm of Jay Cooke & Co., procured and forwarded to Washing- 
ton, without compensation, a large list of subscribers. The 
State of Pennsylvania required a war loan of several millions, 
and it was negotiated mostly by Jay Cooke & Co., who suc- 
ceeded in placing it at par, though it was at a time of great 
commercial and financial depression. 

These successful negotiations attracted the attention of the 
Secretary of the Treasury to their ability as financiers. Soon 
afterward, having failed to obtain satisfactory aid from the 
associated banks, Mr. Chase resolved to try the experiment of a 
popular loan, and to this 'end, appointed four hundred special 
agents, mostly presidents or cashiers of prominent banking 
institutions throughout the country. In Philadelphia, Jay 
Cooke & Company Avere selected, and they immediately or- 
ganized a system which resulted in the popularization of the 
loan, and secured the co-operation of the masses in the sub- 
scription to it. Of the entire sum secured by the four hundred 
agents, not quite thirty, millions in all, one third was returned 
by Jay Cooke k Company. As this did not fill the trcasurv, 
Y.'hose "wants were constantly increasing, with sufficient rapidity, 
Mr. Chase, after consultation with eminent financiers, determined 
to place the negotiation of the five hundred millions of five- 
twenty bonds, just authorized by Congress, in the hands of a 
special agent, as Congress had given him permission to do. Mr. 
Cooke's success in this small loan, led Mr. Chase to select him 
for the agent. He accepted the appointment, and organized 
his plans for the sale of the loan, with what success is now a 
matter of history. 

A bolder and more daring financial undertaking than this ia 



532 MEX OF OUR DAT. 

not to be found in the records of monetary liistory. The risks 
were frightful, the compensatioi], if no sales were made, nothing; 
if they were effected, five eighths of one per cent, on the 
amount sold, which was to cover all commissions to sub-agents, 
advertising, correspondence, postage, clerk hire, express fees, 
and remuneration for labor and superintendence. The Gov- 
ernment assumed no risks, and if the loan failed to take with 
the people, the advertising and other expenses alone would 
swallow up the entire fortune of Mr. Cooke and his partners. 
The commissions received by European bankers for negotiating 
such a loan, themselves assuming no risks, are from four to 
eight per cent., and tlierc was not another banking house in the 
United States which would have taken it on the terms accepted 
by Mr. Cooke ; but his country was engaged in a deadly strife 
for the preservation of its liberties; it needed money in vast 
sums to conduct this gigantic struggle successfully, and if it did 
not have it promptly, the great sacrifices made already, would 
prove in vain. Some one, possessing an ample fortune, must 
have patriotism enough to take the risk, great as it was, and if 
it must be so, ruin himself in the effort to save his country. In 
the secretary's tendering him this position, first and unhesitat- 
ingly, there seemed to be a call of Divine Providence on him to 
undertake this great responsibility. He accepted it as a Chris- 
tian and a patriot, and it is no more than the truth to say, that 
in the history of the war, no enterprise was undertaken from a 
higher motive, or from a loftier sense of duty and patriotism. 

His labors, during this sale of bonds, were incessant ; " he 
was,"' saj's a l)anker, a friend of his, "the hardest worked man 
in America." Public opinion, in favor of the loan, was to be 
created and stimulated ; the loan itself was to be made accessible 
to all classes, and all were to be shown that it was for their 
interest and benefit to invest all their surplus, be it little or 



I 



JAY COOKE. • 533 

much, in these bonds of the nation ; every village must have 
its agent, so that all parties, the sempstress, the domestic;, the 
young journeyman, or the farmer's boy, who had Init fifty 
dollars of their earnings to invest, the fi'uit of long savings and 
painful toil, might be as well and as promptly accommodated 
as the rich capitalist who wished to purchase his hundreds of 
thousands. Every lo3^al paper in the nation had its advertise- 
ments, and every vehicle of information by which the masses 
could be reached its carefully written articles explaining and 
commending the bonds. Over half a million of dollars were 
expended in this machinery, before the receipts began to come 
in. Mr. Cooke's partners were getting a little anxious, but his 
countenance was still sunny, and his faith in the loyalty of the 
nation, firm as a rock. Then, after awhile, the orders began to 
come ; first, like the few drops that betoken the coming storm, 
then faster and thicker, patter, patter, patter; then an over- 
whelming flood, that kept all hands busy till midnight, day 
after day. So great was the rush for the bonds toward the last, 
that when Mr. Cooke gave notice that no more could be sold 
after a certain day and hour, and that the five hundred millions 
were already taken, the orders and money poured in, till he 
was obliged to issue, and Congress to legalize, fourteen millions 
beyond the amount first authorized. 

It was a grand, a glorious success, and at once put Mr. Cooke 
in the first rank among the great financiers of the world ; but 
the immediate pecuniary profit from it was very small. As we 
have said, the commission to cover all expenditures was but five- 
eighths of one per cent., and from this were paid the advertising, 
review articles, clerk hire, postage, and express fees, and one 
fourth of one per cent, commission to sub-agents. But this 
was not all the deductions which were to be made on this gross 
commission The nation has never bad an abler, nor a more 



534 ilEX OF OUR DAY, 

really economical Secretary of the Treasury, than Mr. Chase 
He was so careful, so scrupulous, in regard to the expenditures 
of his department, that even in these great enterprises, his 
economy almost approached to penuriousness. Though the 
sales of the five-twenty bonds were solely due to the almost 
superhuman efforts of Jay Cooke and the corps of agents. whom 
he had trained, and he was entitled, therefore, to a commission 
on the entire amount, under the ordinary customs of financial 
transactions, a portion of the sub-agents had applied directly to 
the treasury department for their bonds, and Mr. Chase refused 
to pay him a commission on any of these, so that he actually 
received his commission only on three hundred and sixty-three 
millions. A selfish and mercenary man would have insisted on 
hi^ right to the entire commission, and might very possibly 
have secured it, but it was from no selfish or mercenary motive 
that Mr. Cooke had entered upon this work, and he allowed the 
economical secretary, whose ability, integrity, and patriotism 
he never questioned, to settle the matter as he believed to be 
most for the interest of the nation. 

Mr. Chase believed that the popularization of this loan had 
so enamored the people with Government bonds, that he 
should find no difficulty in floating a five per cent, ten-forty 
loan, without the aid of the Philadelphia banking agency. He 
tried it, but the public mind was not prepared for it, and he 
projected a large issue of seven-thirty three year bonds, the 
interest payable in currency, and the bonds convertible at 
maturity into five-twenty six per cent, bonds, the interest pay- 
able in coin. 

Meanwhile the price of gold was constantly increasing, or 
rather the gold value of the currency was rapidly decreasing. 
The national banking system which he had inaugurated, and in 
which Mr. Cooke had rendered him most essential aid, was as 



JAY COOKE 535 

jet an experiment, and for the want of some additional pro- 
visions, subsequently made by Congress, the State banks and 
many of the large public and private bankers of the great cities 
were fighting the national banks with great ferocity. This 
system was destined ere long to become a magnificent success, 
and to displace all the State organizations with a rapidity which 
reminded the observer of the transformation of the genii of 
Persian story ; but for the present affairs looked gloomy. 

The great fighting was going on from the Rapidan to the 
James (for it was the early part of the great battle summer of 
1864), and every department of the Government was calling for 
more men and more money, and as yet no great victories had 
presaged the coming overthrow of the rebellion. Sick at heart, 
worn down with excessive labor, and feeling that his great 
efforts had not been fully appreciated, Mr. Chase suddenly re- 
signed, in June, 1864, and Mr. Fessenden, an able financier, 
though of less sunny temper, succeeded him. 

The rapid depreciation of the currency which ensued on the 
announcement of this change, is one of the cardinal points in the 
memory of the bulls and bears of our generation. In fifteen 
days, gold rose from 88 per cent, premium to 185 per cent., and 
there was a fierce outcry against the Government, for all men 
feared impending bankruptcy. 

In this emergency, Mr. Fessenden applied to Jay Cooke, 
whose abilities he well knew, to put his strong shoulder again 
to the wheel, and lift the Government out of the slough of 
despond, in which it was fast settling. The appeal was not in 
vain. Again the army of sub-agents was organized ; again the 
loyal papers of e-.3ry state teemed with advertisements, this 
time of seven-thirty bonds; again the pens of ready writers 
were in demand to write up the advantages of Government 
securities, and Mr. Cooke himself essayed the defence of the 



636 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

financial paradox, *'a national Debt, a^ national Blessing." 
Again were the mails burdened with orders, and men and 
women, old and young, of all stations in life, hastened to secure 
the Government's promises to pay. Mr. Cooke and the houses 
with which he was in correspondence, had, meantime, opened 
the way for large transactions, at rapidly increasing prices, in 
our bonds, in Europe ; had diifuscd information, especially in 
Germany, Switzerland, and Holland in regard to them, till, early 
in 1865, nearl}'- two hundred millions of United States Govern- 
ment bonds had been placed in Europe. This amount was subse- 
quently still farther increased to between four and live hundred 
millions, and those bonds are to-day as regularly called at the 
boards of London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfort, and Berlin, as 
at those of our American cities. 

The success of the three series of seven-thirty loans, was as 
great as that of the five-twenties had been ; greater if we take 
into account .the larger amount, the already great indebtedness 
of the Government, and the depressing circumstances under 
which they were first put upon the market. In less than a 
year eight hundred and thirty millions of these bonds Avere sold. 
During this period, a part of the time, the Government expendi- 
ture exceeded three millions of dollars a day, but soon, under 
the heavy blows of great armies well fed and clothed, and abun- 
dantly supplied with money and all the munitions of war, one 
stronghold of the enemy after another fell into our hands, vic- 
tory resounded from one end of the country to the other, and 
the great rebellion was crushed. 

Since the war, the house of Jay Cooke & Co., now having its 
branches in "Washington and New York, has confined itself to 
the negotiation of loans for great corporate enteri3rises, dealing 
in Government securities, etc., etc., and still, in the vastness of 
its enterprises, the integrity and honor of its dealings, and the 



JAY COOKE. 637 

consummate financial ability v/hich has marked all its operations, 
retains and is ever increasing its past prestige. 

Mr. Cooke still works luird, but be enjoys life, and whether 
at his city residence, or in that magnificent palace which his 
princely fortune has enabled him to rear in the vicinity of Phila- 
delphia, or, in the summer months, at that beautiful country- 
seat on Gibraltar island ill Lake Eric, where, as in boyhood, he 
enjoys trolling for the scaly denizens of the lake, he is the same 
sunny-faced, genial, whole-hearted man, as when years ago he 
managed the affairs of E. W. Clark k Co. With all his hard 
work and great enterprises, the spirit of the boy has not died 
out of him. Mr. Cooke's liberality is as princely as his fortune. 
Throughout the war, he was lavish in his gifts to the Sanitary 
Commission, to the hospitals, to sick and wounded soldiery to 
the Christian Commission, and to all good enterprises. Since 
the war, the recording angel alone can tell how many of our 
crippled veterans he has helped to attain a competency, how 
many soldiers, widows, and orphans he has aided and blessed, 
how many homes, made desolate by the war, he has cheered 
and brightened. To Kenyon college, Ohio, he has given 
twenty-five thousand dollars, and to a theological seminary of 
his own church (the Protestant Episcopal) a still larger sum. 
In the vicinity of his home on Chelton Hills, near Philadelphia, 
he has built several country churches. 

On one of the beautiful islands of Lake Erie, near Sandusky, 
he has erected a charming country-seat, and has built a neat 
chapel for the residents of the island, whicli is, we believe, 
entirely his own property. Ilere he spends his summer resting 
time, and plays as hard as he works the rest of the year. But 
he is not content to take his play-spell alone, and for some 
weeks before his annual visit there, his leisure moments are em 
ployed in sending missives, usually with check enclosed, to hard 



588 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

worked country clergymen, inviting them to spend their sum- 
mer vacation with him on the island. Many a country parson, 
in a poor parish, with a scattered and illiterate population, when 
just ready to yield to discouragement, has found his heart 
cheered, his faith strengthened, and his capacity for efficient 
labor greatly increased, by a visit to the hospitable home of the 
Philadelphia banker. 

Wealth hoarded with miserly greed, withheld from all good 
and wise charities, or bestowed only on the gratification of 
pride, appetite, or lust, is a curse ; but wealth held in recognition 
of man's stewardship to the God who has given it, and scattered 
so wisely as to comfort and cheer the unfortunate, the helpless, 
and the n^edy, and to rear the institutions of religion, is a bless- 
ing for wi ich the world has cause to be grateful. 



HON. HUGH McCULLOCH, 

SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. 




HIS gentleman, is, we believe, a native of Indiana. He 
■was at all events a citizen of that State for many years, 
and as President of the State Bank, attained a higli 
'^ reputation for integrity, firmness, and financial ability. 
His tact and skill in relieving the State from its embarrassed 
financial position, some years since, attracted Secretary Chase's 
attention to him, and, in 1862, he was made Comptroller of the 
Currency, a position of great difiiculty and responsibility at that 
time. He acquitted himself so well there, that when Mr. 
Fessenden signified his intention of retiring from the office of 
Secretary of the Treasury, in March, 1865, President Lincoln 
nominated Mr. McCulloch to succeed him. He was confirmed, 
and has managed the treasury department with great ability. He 
has been desirous of a more speedy return to specie payments 
than Congress thought advisable, but while held in check by 
their action, he has endeavored so to shape matters and to keep 
the finances so completely within the control of the department, 
as to facilitate that desirable object whenever a return to it shall 
be possible. 

In his political views, Mr. McCulloch is understood to sym- 
pathize with Mr, Johnson, but he has never made his sentiments, 
on other topics than finance, prominent. 

539 



GEORGE PEABODY. 



T is muck to say, but it is the simple truth, that amid the 
01 vast wealth and the immense resources of emperors, 
'^P^ kings, princes, nobles, and bankers in Europe, and the 
^ undoubted benevolence of some of these classes, an 
untitled American merchant and banker, the architect of his 
own fortune, and one who had struggled in his youth with 
adversity, should have outdone all the men of ancient or 
modern times, in the extent of his benefactions, and the compre- 
hensiveness of his views of the claims which the ignorant, the 
poor, and the young have upon men of wealth. It is greatly to 
Mr. Peabody's honor, that he has not sought to hoard his 
wealth till he could no longer use it, and then leave what was 
worthless to him to benevolent purposes, to be fought over per- 
haps, till it was frittered away, by grasping heirs or ravenous 
lawyers. He ha-s preferred to distribute his wealth to purpo- 
ses of benevolence with his own hands, to be his own executor, 
and see for himself that his noble gifts were not misappro- 
priated. 

Geoege Peabody was born in Danvers, Massachusetts, 
February 18, 1795. His parents were in very humble circimi- 
stances, and his childhood was passed amid poverty, and his 
early education acquired in the district schools of the town, 

whJcK were then of very moderate merit. At the age of eleven 
.'■.40 



GEORGE PEABODY. 541 

years-, he was taken as a clerk, by a grcccr in his native town, 
but left him, when he readied his fifteenth year, and after 
spending a year with his grandfather at Thetford, Vermont, he 
went to Newburyport, Massachnsetts, to be a clei'k for his 
elder brother, who had opened a dry goods store there. The 
store Avas consnmed by lire, and he next went with an uncle to 
Georgetown, District of Columbia, whei'C, for the two years 
following, the business was conducted in his name, though he 
was still a minor. The business was not remarkably prosper- 
ous, and young Peabody finding himself in danger, if he re- 
mained in it, of being held responsible for debts he had not 
contracted, withdrew in ISl-i from the business, and entered 
into partnership with Mr. Elisha Eiggs, in the wholesale dry 
goods trade, Mr. Riggs furnishing the capital, and entrusting 
the management of the business to Mr. Peabody. Such was the 
confidence felt by shrewd business men and capitalists, in the 
capacity and integrity of this young man, who had not yet 
passed his nineteenth year. The next year (1815) the house 
was removed to Baltimore, and there soon attracted a large 
business, and as early as 1822, branch houses were established 
in New York and Philadelphia. The mercantile instincts were 
strong in tliis man, and the general confidence felt in his 
integrity and judgment, helped to build up his trade. In 1827, 
]Mi\ Peabody first visited Europe, to buy goods. In 1829, after 
fifteen years of partnership, Mr. Riggs retired, and Mr. Peabody 
became the actual, as he had long been, the virtual head of the 
house, and its senior partner. He now made almost annual vis- 
its to Europe, and was often entrusted by the State of Maryland 
with important financial negotiations, w^hich were always con- 
ducted Avith success. 

Early in 1837, he took up his residence in England, but for 
the next six years continued to be a partner, and the European 



542 MEN" OF OUR DAY. 

representi4,tive of the house of Peabody, Eiggs & Co., there. In 
1843, he withdrew from the firm, and established hiniEclf in 
London, as a merchant and banker. The time seemed inauspi- 
cious for commencing in the business to which he proposed 
devoting himself, the dealing in American securities ; the finan- 
cial whirlwind of 1837 had swept over America, prostrating 
its credit, and involving its State loans and bonds in a common 
rain. This was undeserved in the case of many of the States, 
but the repudiation of some had thrown disgrace upon all. But 
Mr. Peabody, by his integrity of character, his reputation for just 
and honorable dealing, and his solicitude for the honor of his 
country, and the already large wealth which he staked in this 
enterprise, commanded the confidence of all who dealt with him, 
and fcoon inspired trust in the securities in which he dealt. By 
this course he soon built up a large business, land was able to 
save the credit of Maryland, which was more than once endan- 
gered, but rescued by his advances. His services to the State 
were gratefully acknowledged, and compensation tendered for 
them, but always refused. 

Mr. Peabody also rendered important services to Americans 
in London, treating them with great cordialit}^ and liberality, 
making his London house their headquarters, and rendering 
them every attention which courtesy or kindness could demand 
during the whole period of his continuance in business. 

In 1851, at the time of the International Crystal Palace 
exhibition, when the commissioners of other nations had been 
appointed with authority and ample means to maintain the 
reputation of their respective countries, the commissioners 
from the United States alone arrived in London friendless, 
without Government appropriations, and some of them penni- 
less. The English press began to ridicule the sorry appearance 
Brother Jonathan was likely to make, and the exhib'tora 



GEORGE PEABODY. 543 

from tlie United States and tlieir friends were becoming niucli 
disheartened. 

At this juncture, Mr. Peabody stepped forward, and by 
liberal advances, to the amount of many thousands of dollars, 
the American department was fitted up, and the credit of the 
inventors of the United States saved. In the end it was found 
that the articles of greatest value, though not perhaps those of 
tlie most ornamental character in the exhibition, were found in 
the American department. 

But these were but the preludes to the liberality so vast as to 
excite the admiration of all Christendom. In 1852 the bi-cen- 
teunial anniversary of the founding of his native town of 
Danvers was to be held, and he was invited by a committee of 
the citizens to be present. He was not able to comply with 
the invitation, but sent a letter enclosing -a sealed envelope, 
which he said contained a toast for the occasion, and which he 
requested should not be opened until the time of the auniver- 
savy. His wishes were obeyed, and on opening the envelope, 
there was found this toast : " Education — a debt from the present 
to future generations," and by Avay of paying his portion of 
that debt, he had enclosed a check for twenty thousand dollars 
for the founding of an institute, lyceum and library in South 
Danvers, the parish in which he had been born and spent 
his childhood. This amount he increased by subsequent gifts 
to $60,000, and added $10,000 to establish a branch institute in 
North Danvers. 

To the first Grinnell Arctic expedition he gave $10,000 to 
aid in the outfit of the Advcmce, Dr. Kane's exploring vessel, 
and his liberality was commemorated by the doctor in the 
name of Peabody Bay. 

In February, 1857, Mr. Peabody, in fulfilment of a Jong 
cherished plan, conveyed to trustees in the city cf Baltimore 



544 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

the sum of $300,000, to found an Institute for that city, witli a 
library, course of lectures, prizes, an Academy of Music, a 
Gallery of Art, and accommodations for the Maryland Historical 
Society. This amount he subsequently increased to $500,000, 
and in 1866, at the instance and representation of some of his 
Baltimore friends, added $500,000 more, making the whole 
amount one million dollars. 

During the war, Mr. Peabody remained in London, and, aside 
from his usual and many extraordinary instances of liberality 
to Americans abroad, devoted his more especial attention to the 
erection of homes for the poor in London. The problem of the 
best method of accomplishing so desirable an object in tho wisest 
manner was a dif&cult one, and Mr. Peabody entered into ii 
with great zeal, and greater success than has followed the efforts 
of any previous philanthropists in this work. lie has already 
expended in these buildings, and conveyed to trustees, property 
which cost him $1,237,000. The Queen, in testimony of her 
appreciation of his great liberality (manifested as it had been in 
many other ways, also, to the people of England), had her portrait 
painted on ivory and framed in gold and gems, especially for 
him. This portrait he has deposited with the Peabody Institute 
at Dauvers. The sum of three thousand pounds sterling has 
also been subscribed for a statue of him, in one of the public 
parks of London, by admiring Englishmen, 

But his strongest affection was still that for his native land, 
and, in 186G, he again revisited the United States. While in 

7 JO 

this country, (and his stay was nearly a year,) he bestowed, as 
we have already mentioned, $500,000 more on the Baltimore 
Institute; selected a board of trustees, consisting of eminent 
men North and South, and placed in their hands funds and 
secijrities, to the amount of $2,100,000, the interest and part 
of the priiicfoal of which was to be applied to the assistance of 



GEORGE PEABODY. 545 

tjchools, and the promotion of education without distinction of 
race or color, in the Southern States ; one of the n blest, and 
we believe, the noblest benefaction ever made to education by 
a single individual ; and one which, in the condition and under 
the circumstances of the Southern States at the present time, 
cannot fail to accomplish an incalculable amount of good. 

Besides this, he conveyed the sum of $150,000 to trustees 
for the founding of professorships of archaeology and physical 
science in Harvard university ; and the same sum to otlier 
trustees for the establishment of professorships of art and physi- 
cal science in Yale college ; made a further endowment of the 
Danvers Peabody institute ; erected a memorial church to his 
mother's memory in South Danvers, built another church in 
Vermont, and made numerous lesser donations to other charit- 
able purposes. 

Thus has this man, from the avails of his own industry 

and enterprise, bestowed on the communities of England and 

America, for charitable purposes, within the last sixteen years, 

and mainly within the last eleven years, the sum of five millions 

of dollars. It is said that his fortune is still ample, and his 

bounties in Europe still large. He has tasted the luxury of 

liberal giving, and he will hardly be likely to cease his acts of 

benevolence till life closes. We know no grander recorr" 

than his, in all the history of human beneficence. 
35 



HORACE GREELEY. 



(^ 



r/|JOKACE GREELEY was born at Amherst, New Hamp 
X.1 I sliire, on the 3d of Februar}", 1811, being the third 
^m|) of seven children, two of whom had died before his 
e) birth. His father, Zaccheus (a name borne, also, by 
his grandfather and great-grandfather), was a native of Lon- 
dondery (now Hudson), New Hampshire, and was of the 
Massachusetts clan, " mainly farmers, but part blacksmiths," 
who traced their ancestry to one of three brothers who 
emigrated to this country, about 1650, from Nottingham- 
shire, England. All the Greelcys are said to have possessed 
marked and peculiar characters — distinguished for tenacity of 
vitality, opinions, preferences, memory, and purpose. Few of 
them have ever been rich, but all, as far as known, have been 
of respectable social condition, industrious, honest, and loyal. 
Mary Woodburn, the wife of Zaccheus, and the mother of 
Horace Greeley, was also of Londondcry, New Hampshire, of 
that fine old Scotch-Irish stock which settled that town — Irish 
in their vivacity, generosity, and daring ; Scotch in their 
frugality, industry, and resolution — a race in whom Nature 
seems, for once, to have kindly blended the qualities wliich 
i;endcr men interesting with those which render them prosper- 
ous. The Greeley and Woodburn farm adjoined, and so it 
546 




'.■a.lter,Fhii,ajj" 



HORACE GREELEY. 547 

came about that Zaccheus Grcelej found favor in tlie eyes of 
Mary AVoodburn, and Avas married to lior in the year 1807, 
he being then twenty-tive years of age and she nineteen. lie 
inherited nothing from his father, and she had no property 
except the usual household jjortion from hers — so the young 
couple settled down at old Mr. Greeley's — supporting, for 
a while, the old folks and their still numerous minor children ; 
but this did not last long. Young married people crave inde- 
pendence, and, ere long, Zaccheus Greeley managed to pur- 
chase, partly with his earnings and partly "on trust," a small 
and not over fertile farm at Amherst, Avhere, as we have seen, 
Horace first saw the light. In New England, farmer's sons learn 
to make themselves useful almost as soon as they can walk 
Feeding the chickens, driving the cows, carrying wood and 
water, and all the light offices which are denominated " ignores, ^^ 
fall to their lot ; and Horace (as the eldest son of a poor and 
hard working farmer struggling hard with the sterile soil to 
pay off the debt he had incurred in its purchase, and to support 
his increasing family) was by no means exempt from his share 
of daily toil and responsibilities. Grubbing in the corn hills, 
" riding the horse to plow," burning cbarcoal in the neighbor- 
ing woods, and " picking stones," were among the occupations 
which the boy carried on — and that right faithfully, too, 
although his heart rejoiced not in them. The last named labor 
he seemed to have disrelished exceedingly. " Picking stones," 
says he, in his autobiography, " is a never-ending labor on one 
of those New England farms. Pick as closely as you may, the 
next plowing turns up a fresh eruption of boulders and pebbles, 
from tlie size of a hickory nut to that of a tea-kettle, and as 
this work is mainly to be done in March or April, when the 
earth is saturated with ice-cold water, if not also whitened with 
falling snow, youngsters soon learn to regard it with detesta- 



548 MEN OF OUU \>XY. 

tion. I filially love the ' Granite State,' but could well excuse 
the absence of sundry subdivisions of her granite." The fact 
seems to have been that, however faithful and careful in the 
performance of these farm duties, repulsive as they were to 
him, Horace's mind, from early infancy, craved hiowledyc. Aa 
a ver}^ young child, he took to learning with the same prompt 
instinctive and irrepressible love with which a duck is said 
to take to the water. Like many other distinguished men, 
he found his first and best instructor in his mother — who 
possessed a strong mind, a retentive memory, a perpetual over- 
flow of good spirits, a great fondness for reading, and an 
exhaustless fund of songs, ballads, and stories — to which latter, 
the boy listened greedily, sitting on the floor at her feet, while 
she spun and talked with equal energy. " They served/' says 
Mr. Greeley, " to awaken in me a thirst for knowledge, and a 
livel}^ interest in learning and history." At the maternal knee 
— and ever with the hum of the spinning wheel as an accom- 
paniment — the boy learned, also, to read, before he had learned 
to talk; that is, before he could pronounce the longer words; 
and from the fact that the book lay in her lap, he soon acquired 
a facility of reading from it sidewise, or upside down, as readily 
as in the usual fashion — which knack became " a subject of 
neighborhood wonder and fabulous exaggeration." At three 
years of age he could read easily and correctly any of the books 
prepared for children, and, by the time he was four years old, 
any book whatever. His third winter was spent at the house 
of his grandfather Woodburn, at Londondery, where he at- 
tended the district school, as he continued to do most of the 
winters and some of the summer months during the next three 
years. At this school he soon attained remarkable distinction 
by his cleverness at spelling, which was his passion. In this he 
was unrivalled — no word could ever puzzle him — he spelt in 



HORACE GREELEY. 549 

school and out of it — at work or at play — and, for hours at a 
time, he would lie upon the floor of his grandfather's house 
spelling all the hard words which he could find in the Bible 
and the few other books within reach. Of course, he was the 
great hero of the " spelling match" — that favorite diversion of 
New England district schools — and there are some still living 
who love to recount how Ilorace, then a little " white, tow- 
headed boy," would sometimes fall asleep (for these " matches " 
were generally held in the evening) and when it came his turn, 
his neighbors would give him an anxious nudge, and he would 
wake instantly, spell off his word, and drop asleep again in a 
moment. Frequently carried to school when the snow was too 
deep for him to wade through, on his aunt's shoulder, the eager 
little fellow stoutly maintained his place among larger and 
older scholars, and manfully mastered the slender information 
which he could glean from the pages of Webster's Spelling 
Book (then displacing Dilworth's), Bingham's Grammar, called 
"The Ladies' Accidence" and "The Columbian Orator." This 
latter, the first book he ever owned, had been given him by an 
uncle, while he lay sick with the measles, in his fourth year, at 
his grandfather's. It was his prized text book for years, and he 
learned all its dialogues, speeches, extracts of poetry, by heart, 
among others that well-known oration, so familiar to our boyish 
memories, commencing, 

"You'd .scarce expect one of my age, 
To si^eak in public on the stage." 

When he was six years old, his father removed to a larger 
farm in Bedford, New Hampshire, which he had undertaken 
to work " on shares," and until his tenth year, Horace's school- 
ing was combined with a pretty fair share of work. " Here," 
he says, "I first learned that this is a world of hard work. 



550 MEN OF OUK DAY. 

Often called out of bed at dawn to " ride horse to plow" among 
the growing corn, potatoes, and hops, we would get as mucL 
plowed by nine to ten o'clock A.M., as could be hoed that day, 
when I would be allowed to start for school, Avhere I sometime:* 
arrived as the forenoon session was half through. In winter, 
our Avork was lighter ; but the snow was often deep and drifted, 
the cold intense, the north wind piercing, and our clothing thin, 
besides which, the term rarely exceeded, and sometimes fell 
short of, two months. I am grateful for much — schooling in- 
cluded — to my native State; yet, I trust her boys of to-day 
generally enjoy better facilities for education at her common 
schools than they afforded me half a century ago." Young 
Greeley had no right to attend the school at Bedford, as he did 
not belong to the district — yet he was complimented by a per- 
mission granted by an express vote of the school committee, 
that " no pupils from other towns sliould be received" at their 
school, " except Sorace Greeley alone^ Among the few adjuvants 
to knowledge which the boy enjoyed, was the weeldy oiewsjmjier 
which came to his father's house, " The Farmer's Cabinet,''^ mild 
in politics and scanty, if not heavy, in its literary contents ; but, 
for all that, a " connecting link" between the little homestead 
and the great outside, unknown world. Perhaps it uncon- 
sciously strengthened the youth's impulse toward becomiug a 
printer and a newspaper man. 

For, it is related of him, that previously to this, while one 
day watching, most intently, the operation of shooing a horse, 
the blacksmith observed to him : " You'd better come A\ith me 
and learn the trade." " No," was the prompt reply, " I'm going 
to be a printer," a positive choice of a career by so diminutive 
a specimen of humanity, which mightily amused the bystanders. 
In his tenth year, however, a change had come to the family 
fortunes. His father, like many other hard-working farmers in 



HORACE GRKKLEV. 551 

New Hampshire, was not able to " weather the storm," which 
made the year 1S20 memorable to many as "hard times." He 
failed, and having made an " arrangement with his creditors" (for 
he was a truly honest man), gave up his form, temporarily, and 
removed to another in the adjoining town of Bedford, where he 
commenced the raising of hops, mostly on shares. In two 
years, however, despite his industry, he came back to his old 
Amherst home poorer than ever ; and, finally, became utterly 
bankrupt, was sold out by the sheriff, and fled from the State 
to avoid arrest. He wandered away to Westhaven, Eutland 
county, Vermont, where he fortunately succeeded in hiring a 
small house, to which, in January, 1821, he brought his family. 
Stripped of all but the barest necessities, the little family now 
commenced life literally anew. Horace's life at "Westhaven, 
during the next live years, was much the same as before — 
plenty of hard work — rough fare, and an insatiable cramming 
of book knowledge, varied, sometimes, by plajdng draughts, or 
"checkers,"' in which game he is a great proficient. Yet the 
Yankee element was strong within him. He was always doing 
something, and he always had something to sell. He saved 
nuts and pitch pine roots for kindling wood, exchanging them 
at the country store for articles which he needed. 

The only out-door sport which the boy seemed to like, was 
" bee-hunting," which frequently yielded a snug little sum of 
pocket-money ; and when a peddler happened along with books 
in his wagon, or pack, the hard earned pennies were pretty sure 
to leave Horace's pockets. But, while he could earn^ he had 
little ur no faculty of hargainmg, or of maJung money. In his 
eleventh year, he heard that an apprentice was wanted in a news- 
paper ofiice at Whitehall ; and, true to his old fancy of becom- 
ing a printer, he trudged over there on foot, a distance of nine 
miles, but was refused the place on account of his youth. 



552 MEN' OF OUK DAY. 

Westhaveu, at that time, Avas a desperate place for drinking, 
and Horace and his brother had early imbibed a thorough aver- 
sion to the use of intoxicating liquors and tobacco. Asking his 
father, one day, what he'd give him if he would not drink a 
drop of liquor till he was twenty-one; his father thinking it, 
perhaps, a mere passing whim of the boy's, replied " I'll give 
you a dollar." It was a bargain, and from that day to this, 
Horace has not knowingly taken into his system any alcoholic 
lij[uid, and has been a distinguished and fearless advocate of 
teetotalism. During his Westhaven life, also, he became — 
although surrounded by orthodoxy, and descended from ortho- 
dox parents — by the natural process of his own reasoning, a 
Universalist — yet he never entered a church, or heard a sermon, 
of that fiiith, until he was twenty years ojd. This all arose 
from his chance reading, in a school book, of the history of 
Demetrius Poliorcetes, one of Alexander the Great's generals, 
whose conduct towards the ungrateful Athenians, as related by 
the earlier historians, presents an example of magnanimity, as 
sublime as it is rare. Reflecting with admiration on this case, 
Greeley, young as he was, " was moved," as he says, " to inquire 
if a spirit so nobly, so wisely transcending the mean and savage 
impulse which man too often disguises as justice, when it is in 
essence revenge, might not be reverentially termed divine ;" 
in fact, if it did not " image forth" the attitude of an all-wise, 
just, yet merciful God, toward an erring humanity. And 
though, in his career, the subject of our sketch has confined 
himself, by the very necessity of his nature, chiefly to the 
advancement of material interests, yet it is not to be doubted 
that this earl}'- change of religious belief gave to his subsequent 
life much of its direction and character. 

By the spring of 1826, Horace had exhausted the schools and 
the capabilities of his teachers, and was impatient to be at the 



HORACE GREELKV. 553 

types. To his oft repeated importunities, his father strongly 
objected — partly, because he needed the lad's help at home on 
the farm ; partly, because he feared that one so young, so gentle, 
awkward, and with so little " push" about him, would be unable 
to battle his way among strangers. But, one day, Horace saw 
in the Norlhern Spectator^ a weekly sheet (Adams in politics), 
published at East Poultney, Vermont, eleven miles from hig 
home, a notice of a " boy wanted" in the office. Wringing from 
his father a reluctant consent to his applying for the place, he 
walked over to Poultney, came to an understanding with the 
proprietors, and returned home. A few days later, April 18th, 
1826, his father took him down to the office and entered into a 
verbal agreement with the parties, for his son's services, to the 
effect that he was to remain at his apprenticeship with them till 
he was twenty years of age, be allowed for his board only for 
six months, and thereafter $40 per annum for clothing. Leav- 
ing Horace at work in the printing office, Mr. Greeley returned 
home ; and, shortly after, removed his residence to Wayne, 
Erie county, Pennsylvania, The new apprentice's experience 
at Poultney is thus related by himself: 

"The organization and management of our establishment 
were vicious ; for an apprentice should have one master, and I 
had a succession of them, and often two or three at once. These 
changes enabled me to demand and receive a more liberal allow- 
ance for the later years of my apprenticeship ; but the office was 
too laxly ruled for the most part, and, as to instruction, every 
one had perfect liberty to learn what he could. In fact, as but 
two or at most three persons were employed in the printing 
department, it would have puzzled an apprentice to avoid a 
practical knowledge of whatever was done there. I had not 
been there a year before my hands were blistered and my back 
lamed by working off the very considerable edition of the paper 
on an old-foshioned, two-pull Eamagc (wooden) press — a task 
beyond mj boyish strength — and I can scarcely recall a day 



554 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

wherein -we were not hurried by our work. I would m i implj 
that I worked too hard — yet I think few apprentices work more 
steadily and faithfully than I did throughout the four years and 
over of my stay in Poultney. While I lived at home, I had 
always been allowed a day's fishing, at least once a month, in 
spring and summer, and I once went hunting ; but I never 
fished, nor hunted, nor attended a dance, nor any sort of party 
or fandango, in Poultney. I doubt that I even played a game 
of ball. Yet I was ever considerately and even kindly treated by 
those in authority over me, and I believe I generally merited 
and enjoyed their confidence and good-will. Yery seldom was 
a word of reproach or dissatisfaction addressed to me by one of 
them. Though I worked diligently, I found much time for 
reading, and might have had more, had every leisure hour been 
carefully improved. * * * They say that apprenticeship is 
distasteful to and out of fashion with the boys of our day ; if 
so, I regret it for their sakes. To the youth who asks, ' How 
shall I obtain an education?' I would answer, 'Learn a trade 
of a good master.' I hold firmly that most boys may thus bet- 
ter acquire the knowledge they need than by spending four 
years in college." 

He speedily became one of the leading members of the vil- 
lage Debating Society, or Lyceum, as it was styled ; and, to use 
the words of an old comrade, " whenever he was appointed to 
speak or to read an essay, he never wanted to be excused ; he 
was always ready. He was exceedingly interested in the ques- 
tions which he discussed, and stuck to his opinion against all 
opposition — not discourteously, but still he stuck to it, replying 
with the most perfect assurance to men of high station and of 
low. He had one advantage over all his fellow members ; it 
was his memory. He had read every thing, and remembered 
the minutest details of important events ; dates, names, places, 
figures, statistics — nothing had escaped him. He was never 
treated as a hoij in the society, but as a man and an equal ; and 



HORACE GREELEY. 555 

his opinions were considered witli as mucli deference as those 
of the judge or the sherilY — more, I think. To the graces of 
oratory he made no pretence, but he was a fluent anc interest* 
ing speaker, and had a way of giving an unexpected tiirn to the 
debate by reminding members of a fact, well known but over- 
looked; or by correcting a misquotation, or by appealing to 
what are called first principles. He was an opponent to be 
afraid of; yet his sincerity and his earnestness were so evident, 
that those whom he most signally floored liked him none the 
less for it. He never lost his temper. In short, he spoke in 
his sixteenth year just as he speaks now."' It may be added 
that tlien, as now, he was utterly oblivious of the niceties — we 
had almost said the proprieties — of dress, and his ill-fitted, and 
really insufficient clothing, excited the pity of a few considerate 
ones, and the frequent derision of many unthinking ones. But 
the forty dollars a year which was allowed him by his employ- 
ers for clothing, was carefully husbanded and sent to his father, 
who was struggling with the difl&culties of a new farm in the 
wilderness on the other side of the Alleghanies ; and twice, 
during his Poultney residence, he visited those beloved parents, 
traversing the distance of six hundred miles, partly on foot, and 
partly by the tedious canal boat. Among the incidents of his 
sojourn in Poultney that which made the most impression on 
his mind, was a fugitive slave chase. The State of New York 
had abolished slavery years before, but certain born slaves 
were to remain such till twenty-efight years old. One of these 
young negroes decamped from his master, in a neighboring 
New York town, to our village ; where he was at work, when 
said master came over to reclaim and recover him. "I never 
saw," says Mr. Greeley, " so large a muster of men and boys so 
suddenlj- on our village-green as his advent incited ; and the 
result was a speedy disappearance of the chattel, and the return 



666 MEX OF OUR DAY. 

of his master, disconsolate and niggerless, to tlie place whence 
lie came. Every thing on our side was impromptu and instinc- 
tive ; and nobody suggested that envy or hate of " the South," 
or of New York, or of the master, had impelled the rescue, 
Our people hated injustice and oppression, and acted as if they 
couldn't help it." 

In June, 1830, the Spectator- and its office were discontinued, 
and Greeley, released from his engagement some months earlier 
than he had expected, started off, with little else than a ward- 
robe which could be stuffed into his pocket, a sore leg, a reten- 
tive memory and a knowledge of the art of printing — to see his 
father. After a while we find him working for eleven dollars 
per mouth, in the office of a " Jackson paper," at Sodus, New 
York, and still later for fifteen dollars per month in the office 
of the Grazette, a weekly paper published at Erie, Pennsylvania. 
At first lie was refused work on account of his extremely ver- 
dant appearance; but, finally, was taken in on trial and ere 
long was in high favor with all who knew him. Seven months 
passed away, and again we find our hero trying his fortunes in 
a new place — this time, in New York itself. His arrival and 
adventures in the " Great Metropolis," in which he was, in the 
course of years, to become so well known, much talked about, 
and useful a citizen, is best described in his own words. 

"It was, if I recollect aright, the 17th of August, 1831. I 
was twenty years old the preceding February; tall, slender, 
pale and plain, with ten dollars in my pocket, summer clothing 
worth perhaps as much more, nearly all on my back, and a 
decent knowledge of so much of the Art of Printing as a boy 
will usually learn in the office of a country newspaper. But I 
knew no human being within two hundred miles, and my un- 
mistakably rustic manner and address did not favor that imme- 
diate command cf remunerating employment which was my 
most urgent need However, the world was all before me ; my 



HORACE gre:ley. 557 

personal estate, ticil up in a pocket-handkerchief, did not at all 
encumber me ; and I stopped lightly off the boat and away from 
the sound of the detested hiss of escaping steam, walking into 
and up Broad street in quest of a boarding-house. I found and 
entered one at or near the corner of Wall ; but the price of 
board given me was six dollars per week ; so I did not need the 
giver's candidly kind suggestion that I would probably prefer 
one where the charge was more moderate. Wandering thence, 
I cannot say how, to the North River side, I halted next at 168 
West street, where the sign of " Boarding" on a humbler edifice 
fixed my attention. I entered, and was offered shelter and 
subsistence at §2.50 per week, which seemed more rational, and 
I closed the bargain. 

Having breakfasted, I began to ransack the city for work, 
and, in my total ignorance, traversed many streets where none 
could possibly be found. In the course of that day and the 
next, however, I must have visited fully two thirds of the 
printiug-ofhces on Manhattan island, without a gleam of success. 
It was mid-summer, when business in New York is habitually 
dull ; and my youth and unquestionable air of country green- 
ness must have told against me. When I called at the Journal 
of Commerce^ its editor, Mr. David Hale, bluntly told me I was 
a runaway-apprentice from some country ofl&ce ; which was a 
very natural, though mistaken, presumption. I returned to my 
lodging on Saturday evening, thoroughly weary, disheartened, 
disgusted with New York, and resolved to shake its dust from 
my feet next morning, while I could still leave with money in 
my pocket, and before its alms-house could foreclose upon me. 

But that was not to be. On Sunday afternoon and evening, 
several young Irishmen called at Mr. McGolrick's, in their holi- 
day saunterings about town ; and, being told that I was a young 
printer in quest of work, interested themselves in my effort, 
with the spontaneous kindness of their race. One among them 
happened to know a place where printers were wanted, and 
gave me the requisite direction ; so that, on visiting the designa- 
ted spot next morning, I readily found employment ; and thus, 



558 MEN' OF OUR DAY. 

when barely th 'ee days a resident, I had found anchorage in 
New York. 

The printing establishment was John T. "West's, over 
AIcElrath & Bangs' publishing-house, 68 Chatham street, and 
the work was at my call, simply because no printer who knew 
the city would accept it. It was the composition of a very 
small (3 2 mo) New Testament, in double columns, of Agate 
type, each column barely twelve ems wide, with a centre col- 
umn of notes in Pearl, barely four ems wide ; the text thickly 
Btudded with references by Greek and superior letters to the 
notes, which of course were preceded and discriminated by 
corresponding indices, with prefatory and supplementary re- 
marks on each Book, set in Pearl, and only paid for as Agate. 
The type was considerably smaller than any to which I had 
been accustomed ; the narrow measure and thickly-sown Italics 
of the test, with the strange characters employed as indices, 
rendered it the slowest and by far the most difficult work I had 
ever undertaken ; while the making up, proving, and correcting, 
twice and even thrice over, preparatory to stereotyping, nearly 
doubled the time required for ordinary composition. I was 
never a swift type-settter ; I aimed to be an assiduous and cor- 
rect one ; but my proofs on this work at first looked as though 
they had caught the chicken-pox, and were in the worst stage 
of a profuse eruption. For the first two or three weeks, being 
sometimes kept waiting for letter, I scarcely made my board ; 
while, by diligent type-sticking through twelve to fourteen 
hours per day, I was able, at my best, to earn but a dollar per 
day. As scarcely another compositor could be induced to work 
on it more than two days, I had this job in good part to myself, 
and I persevered to the end of it. I had removed, very soon 
after obtaining it, to Mrs. Mason's shoemaker boarding-house 
at the corner of Chatham and Duane streets, nearly opposite my 
work ; so that I was enabled to keep doing nearly all the time 
I did not need for meals and sleep. When it was done, I was 
out of work for a fortnight, in spite of my best efibrts to find 
more ; so I attended, as an unknown spectator, the sittings of 
the Tariff Convention, which was held at the American Insti- 



HORACE GREELEY. 559 

tute, north end of tlic City Hall Park, and presided over by 
Hon. William Wilkins, of rittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I next 
found work in Ann street, on a short-lived monthly, where my 
pay was not forthcoming ; and the next month saw me back at 
West's, where a new work — a commentary on the Book of 
Genesis, by Eev. George Bush — had come in ; and I worked on 
it throughout. The cliirography was blind ; the author made 
many vexatious alterations in proof; the page was small and 
the type close ; but, though the reverse of fal^ in printers' jar- 
gon, it was not nearly so abominably lean as the Testament ; 
and I regretted to reach the end of it. When I did, I was 
again out of work, and seriously meditated seeking employment 
at something else than printing; but the winter was a hard one, 
and business in New York stagnant to an extent not now con- 
ceivable." 

From January-, 1832, and through the dreary " cholera sum- 
mer," Greeley worked on the Spirit of the Times^ a new sporting 
paper, and there gained the devoted friendship of its foreman, 
Mr. Francis V. Story, with whom he afterwards entered into 
partnership. The main dependence of their business was the 
printing of Sylvester's " Bank-Note Reporter ;" ana ^he publi- 
cation of Dr. II. D. Shepard's " penny-paper," The Morning Post, 
and the pioneer of the cheap-for-cash dailies in New Yoi k City. 
Hiring rooms on the south-east corner of Nassau and Liberty 
streets, the young " typos" invested their scanty capital (less 
than $200) ; obtained $-iO worth of material, on credit, from 
Mr. George Bruce, the eminent type founder, and commenced 
their business career. The Post, however, was " ahead of the 
Age" — and died, when scarcely a month old, leaving its printers 
" hard aground on a lee shore, with little prospect of getting 
off." Fortunately, however, they escaped total bankruptcy, by 
a successful sale of the wrecked paper to another party, in 
whose hands it was teetotally extinguished, " forever and aye." 
Working early and late, looking sharply on every side for jobs, 



560 MEN" OF OL'R DAY. 

and economizing to the last degree, the firm were beginning to 
make decided headway, when Mr. Story was drowned, in June, 
1833. His place was taken by his brother-in law, Mr. Jonas 
Winchester — since widelj'- known in the newspaper world ; and 
again the concern was favored with steady and moderate pros- 
perity, until, in March, 1834, they issued the first number of 
The New Yorker^ a large, fair", cheap weekly, devoted to current 
literature, etc., of which Mr. Greeley took the sole editorial 
supervision for the next seven years and a half. Two years 
after its birth the partnership was dissolved and Greeley took the 
New Yorker, which held its own pretty well until the commer- 
cial revulsion of 1837. In July, 1836, Mr. Greeley had mar- 
ried, deeming himself worth $5000 and the owner of a remune- 
rative business. To a man of so singularly independent and 
honest a character as his, the debts incurred were a source of 
the most terrible mental anxiety and sufiering. In his autobi- 
ography, he speaks most feelingly of the horrors of bankruptcy 
and debt, closing with these intense but truthful remarks : 

" For my own part — and I speak from sad experience — I 
would rather be a convict in State prison, a slave in a rice- 
swamp, than to pass through life under the harrow of debt. 
Let no young man misjudge himself unfortunate, or truly poor, 
so long as he has the full use of his limbs and faculties and is 
substantially free from debt. Hunger, cold, rags, hard work, 
contempt, suspicion, unjust reproach, are disagreeable ; but debt 
is infinitely worse than them all. And, if it had pleased God 
to spare either or all of my sons to be the support and solace 
of my declining years, the lesson which I should have most 
earnestly sought to impress upon them is — "Never run into 
debt! Avoid pecuniary obligation as you would pestilence or 
famine. If you have but fifty cents, and can get no more for a 
week, buy a peck of corn, parch it and live on it, rather than 
owe any man a dollar ?" Of course, I know that some men 
must do business that involves risks, and must often give notes 



HORACE GREELEY. 561 

and otiier obligations, and I do not consider hini really in debt 
who can lay his hands directly on the means of paying, at some 
little sacrifice, all he owes ; I speak of real debt — that which in- 
volves risk or sacrifice on the one side, obligation and depend- 
ence on the other — and I say, from all such, let every youtb 
humbly pray God to preserve him evermore !" 

The New Yorker came to an end in March, IS-il, with an out- 
standing book account of some $10,000 due to its editor and 
proprietor, of which, it is needless to say, he never afterwards 
saw the first cent. Among the " memorabilia" of its history ia 
the fact that Hon. Henry J. Eaymond, now the chief editor of 
the New York Times, and a " power" in the American press, 
commenced his editorial life as assistant editor of the New 
Yorker on a salary of §8 a week. 

While running this paper, Mr. Greeley, in addition to supply- 
ing leading articles to the Daily Whig for several mouths, 
undertook, in March, 1838, the entire editorship of the Jcffer- 
sonian^ a w^pkly campaign paper, published for a year, at 
Albany, by the Whig Central Committee of the State of New 
York. The sheet had a circulation of 15,000, its editor $1000 
salary and it was a " rousing" good political paper, aiming " to 
convince not to inflame, to enlighten not to blind." The energy, 
industry, and courage (mental as well as physical), required 
to edit a weekly paper in New York City and another in 
Albany, can be imagined only by those who understand the 
nature of an editor's duties. Into the Harrison campaign of 
1840, Greeley threw his whole energies, issuing, on the 2d of 
May, the first number of The Log Cabin, a weekly paper, 
appearing simultaneously in New York and Albany, for the 
six months' campaign. It was conducted with wonderful spirit 
and made an unprecedented hit, 48,000 of the first number being 

sold in a day and the issue increasing to between 80,000 and 
3G 



562 MEN" OF OUR DAY. 

90,000 copies per week. Greeley's own interest in tlie qnesticua 
at issue was most intense, and his labors were incessant and 
arduous. He wrote articles, he made speeches, he sat on com- 
mittees, he travelled, he gave advice, he suggested plans, while 
he had two newspapers on his hands and a load of debt upon 
his shoulders." Designed only as a campaign paper, the Log 
Cabin survived the emergency for which it had been created, 
and, as a family political paper, continued with moderate suc- 
cess until finally merged, together w.ith the New Yorker, in the 
Tribune. 

The Tribune first saw light on the 10th of April, 1841, with 
a "start" of 600 subscribers, and a borrowed capital of $1000. 
Its first experiences were not altogether promising, but it was 
full oijight, and the foolish attempt of a rival, The &m, to crush 
it, aroused the pugnacity of its editor to its fullest extent. The 
public became interested, also ; and by its seventh week, it had 
an edition of 11,000. New presses became necessary — adver- 
tisements poured in ; and then — just " in the nick of time'' — Mr. 
Thomas McElrath was secured as a business partner, and with 
him came also the order and efficiency, which have rendered the 
Tribune establishment one of the best, if not the best, conducted 
newspapers in the world. 

Now came another epoch in Horace Greeley's career — viz.: 
that of Fourierism. A Socialist in theory he had been for 
years before the Tribune was commenced — and, when Albert 
Brisbane returned from Paris, in 1841, full to overflowing of 
the principles of the Apostle of the Doctrine of Association, 
Greeley became one of his earliest and most devoted followers. 
He wrote, talked, lectured on Fourierism; — but, Avith the 
famous six months' newspaper discussion of the subject, in 1846, 
between Greeley and his former lieutenant, H. J. Raymond, 
then of the Courier and Enquirer — the subject died out of the 



HORACE GREELEY. 563 

public mind. In April, 1S42, the Tribune, which had started 
as a penny paper, commenced its second volume at two cents 
per number, without any appreciable loss of its subscription. 
At tlie same time, Greeley and McElrath commenced a monthly 
inagazine, called " The American Laborer,'' devoted chiefly to the 
advocacy of protection. Gradually, also, they got into a some- 
what extensive book publishing business, which, however, 
proved unprofitable and was relinquished, excepting the 
" Whig Almanac," a valuable statistical and political compend, 
which has recently enjoyed the honor of being entirely reprin- 
ted by the process of photo-lithography. In 1843, began the 
Evening Tribune, and in 1845, the Semi- Weekhj. Water-Cure, 
the Brie Eailroad, Irish Eepeal, Protection and Clay were the 
principal objects to which the Tribune gave the full weight of 
its powerful influence. In 1845, the Tribune office was burned ; 
and that year and the two following were years full of hard 
knocks received, and good earnest blows heartily given, against 
Capital punishment, the Mexican War, Slavery, Orthodoxy, 
the Native American party, the drama, etc., etc. In 1848, Mr. 
Greeley was chosen to represent the Congressional District in 
the House of Eepresentatives for a short session ; and hardly 
was he seated there before he introduced a Land Reform Bill ; 
" walked into" the tariff, made in the Tribune a grand expose 
of the Congressional Mileage system (which roused the wrath 
of that honorable body and became the talk of the nation), and 
" pitched into," generally, all the money-spending, time-wasting 
expedients by which public interests and business were delayed 
The tide of corruption, however, was top great to be succes,';- 
fully stemmed by one honest man, and Greeley's three months 
career as a Congressman may be summed up in this, that " as a 
member of Congress, he was truer to himself and dared more in 



564 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

behalf of his constituents than any man who ever sat for one 
session only in the Ilouse of Eepresentatives." 

Meantime, the Tribune establishment was on the high road 
of success ; and was valued by competent judges at $100,000, a 
low estimate perhaps, when we consider that its annual profits 
amounted over $30,000. Both of its proprietors were now in 
the enjoyment of incomes more than sufficient for what they 
needed — and now they determined to give a practical proof of 
their belief in a doctrine which they had earnestly advocated 
for several years previous — viz.: the advantages of associated 
labor and profit. The property was divided into one hundred 
$1000 shares, each of which entitled the holder to one vote in 
the decisions of the company — thus conferring the dignity and 
advantage of ownership on many interested parties, while the 
contesting power practically remained with Greeley and 
McEIrath. It is needless to say that the " Tribune Association" 
has been an eminent success. 

In 1850, a volume of Mr. Greeley's lectures and essays was 
published, under the title of " Hints toward Eeforra." In April, 
1851, Mr. Greeley visited England, to view the " World's Fair" 
and, on his arrival there, found that he had been appointed, by 
the American commissioner, as a member of the jury on hard*- 
ware. The first month of his brief holiday was conscientiously 
employed in the discharge of the tedious and onerous duties 
thus assigned him ; — and, at the banquet, given at Eichmond, 
by the London commissioners to the foreign commissioners, 
he had the honor of proposing, with a speech, the health of 
Joseph Paxton, the architect of the Crystal Palace. He also did 
good service to the cause of cheap popular literature, by his 
evidence given, as an American newspaper editor, before two 
sessions of a committee appointed by Parliament for the con- 
sideration of the proposed repeal of " taxes on knowledge," viz.: 



HORACE GREELEY. 565 

the duty on advertisements and on every periodical containing 
news. A rapid " run" thrcniLzli 1 lie continent, and Greeley was 
back in bis sanctum in the Tribune building, by the middle of 
August, and his experiences were given to the world in an 
interesting volume entitled, "Glances at Europe." With the 
defeat of General Scott, and the annihilation of the old Whig 
party, in November, 1852, the Tribune ceased to be a party 
paper, and its editor a party man. The same year he performed 
a sad but grateful token of regard to the memory of one whom 
he devotedly admired, by finishing Sargent's Life of Henry 
Clay. And, as he found himself now released from the shackles 
of party politics, he began to yearn for the repose and calm 
delights of moral life. He purchased a neat farm of fifty acres 
in Westchester county, where, in such scanty leisure as his 
editorial life allows him, he has put into practical operation 
some of his long cherished theories in regard to farming, etc. 

In 1856, he published an able " History of the struggle for 
Slavery Extension, or Eestriction, in the United States, from 
1787 to 1856 ;" and, in 1859, he made a trip to California, via 
Kansas, Pike's Peak and Utah, being received, at many princi- 
pal towns and cities, by the municipal authorities and citizens, 
whom he addressed on politics, the Pacific railroad, tem- 
perance, etc., and on his return, published the facts in regard to 
the mining regions which he had observed, in a duodecimo 
volume, which sold largely. 

Into all the momentous issues of the war of the rebellion, Mr. 
Greeley, as was to have been expected from his position and 
his antecedents, threw the full weight of his immense influence 
and endeavors. Durinsr the QTcat " Draft Riot" of New York, 
in July, 1863, he was " marked" as an obnoxious person, and 
a house where he had formerly boarded was entered and com- 
pletely sacked by the mob. The ofl&ce of the Tribune was also 



566 MEN' OF OLT. DAY. 

attacked by tlie mob, who sought diligently for him, but tLe 
gallant efforts' of the police soon dispersed them. lu July, 
1S6-A, he was induced, by the pretended anxiety of certain 
parties claiming to represent the Confederate Government, and 
who desired to enter into negotiations for peace, to use his per- 
sonal influence with President Lincoln for an interview, but 
Mr. Lincoln's adroitness soon elicited the fact that these self- 
styled pacificators had no real authority to act in the premises, 
and the matter resulted only in the issue of the celebrated " To 
whom it may concern" message. 

In 1865-67, Mr. Greeley's history of the war was published in 
two volumes, under the title of " The American Conflict," had an 
immense sale, and is justly regarded. North and South, as the 
best political history of that struggle, yet presented to the public. 

Horace Greeley is what botanists would delight in as '' sin- 
gle," or Avhat the German would style " a nature." He is not 
complicated, or many sided, but is pretty much as he grew. 
Tough, rough, persevering, honest, tenacious, reflective, ready, 
independent, humane — he is pre-eminently possessed of that 
rarest of gifts — the Christ-like quality, an ability to take 
supreme interest in human welfare. His forte is the making of 
practical suggestions for the better conduct of life and affairs. 
He is the liberalized, enlightened Franklin of this generation — 
more pious than religious, more humane than devout — yet solely 
devolved to the improvement of the material condition of his 
fellow-men. Not free from errors, of course, for Avhat man is ? 
But lovable and to be respected, in spite of all his faults. 
Beginning life as a workingraan, he has risen from the ranks, 
" ceasing," as has been well said, " to be a workingman with 
workingmen, only to become a workingman /jr workingmen." 

His greatest and only personal ambition has been to make the 
Tribune the best newspaper that ever existed, and the foremost 



HORACE GREELEY. 567 

paper of the United States. As he has recently said, in his auto- 
biography : 

" Fame is a vapor ; popularity an accident ; riches take wings ; 
the only earthly certainty is oblivion — no man can foresee 
what a day may bring forth ; and those who cheer to-day will 
often curse to-morrow ; and yet I clierish the hope that the 
journal I projected and established will live and flourisli long 
after I shall have mouldered, into forgotten dust, being guided 
by a larger wisdom, a more unerring sagacity to discern the 
right, though not by a more unfaltering readiness to embrace 
and defend it at whatever personal cost ; and that the stone 
which covers my ashes may bear to future eyes the still intel- 
ligible inscription, " Founder of The New York Tribune." 

Yet it is a fact, singularly to the credit of his honest, fearless 
nature, that on nearly every one of its special subjects, the Tri- 
bune has stood opposed to the general feeling of the country. 
Its editor is one who never accepts, unreservedly, the views of 
any man, dead or living. " Even though," he says, " I have 
found him right nine times, I do not take his tenth proposition 
on trust ; unless that also be proved sound and rational, I re- 
ject it." 



WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 



^-^ 



6 



ILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, one of the earliest, the 
most persistent, and consistent of American abolitionists, 
^^^ was born at Newburjport, Massachusetts, on the 12th 
^ of December, 1804. Ilis mother was a native of the 
Province of New Brunswick, of English stock, born in the faith 
of the established church, beautiful, spirited, and gay. At the 
age of eighteen, she was led by curiosity to attend the meetings 
of some itinerant Baptists, was converted and became a member 
of that church. For this her parents closed their hearts and 
their doors against her, and she was indebted to an uncle for a 
home until her marriage. She was a woman of marked indi- 
viduality, earnest convictions, enthusiastic temperament, and 
possessed a native gift of eloquence in prayer and exhorta- 
tion, . which was frequently exercised in public, as well as 
allowed by the custom of that denomination. His father, 
Abijah Garrison, was master of a vessel, engaged in the West 
India trade, and was possessed of considerable literary ability 
and taste. Unfortunately, however, he became a victim to in- 
temperance ; and, under its baneful influence, abandoned his 
family. His wife, thus left with her children, in utter poverty, 
adopted the calling of a nurse ; and, in 1814, went to Lynn, 
Massachusetts, and William was placed with Gamaliel Oliver, 

a Quaker shoemaker of that town, to learn the trade. So small 
5C8 



■WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 569 

for liis ago, was he, that liis knees trembled under the weight 
of the Lapstonc; and liis mother finding, at tlie end of a few 
months, that the business would not agree with her boy, sent 
him back to Newburyport. There he was placed at. school, and 
taught the usual routine of New England district schools, at that 
time — reading, writing, ciphering, and a little grammar. He 
lived in the family of Deacon Ezekiel Bartlett; and, as an 
equivalent for his board, employed himself, when out of school, 
in assisting the deacon in his occupation of wood-sawyer, going 
with him from house to house. In 1815, he accompanied his 
mother to Baltimore, where, after a year spent in the capacity 
of "chore-boy," he returned to Ncwbarjq^ort. In 1818, he was 
apprenticed to Moses Short, a cabinet-maker of Haverhill, 
Massachusetts, but finding the trade very repugnant to his 
feelings, he finally succeeded in persuading his employer to 
release him, and in October of the same year, became indentured 
to Ephraim W. Allen, editor of the " Nevjhiryport JTerahl,''^ to 
learn the art of printing. He had, at last, found an emploj- ment 
congenial to his tastes, and speedily became expert in the 
mechanical part of the business. His mind, also, developed 
into activity ; and, when only sixteen or seventeen years of age 
he began to contribute to the columns of the paper, upon political 
and other topics — carefully preserving, however, his incognito. 
On one occasion, the apprentice, who thus had the pleasure of 
setting his own contributions in type, was the amused and 
flattered recipient of a letter of thanks from his master, w' o 
urged him to continue his communications. 

A considerable time elapsed before Mr. Allen became aware 
that the correspondent, whose communications he so valued 
and eagerly welcomed, was his own apprentice. The ice once 
broken, however, young Garrison launched out somewhat more 
extensively in the literary line, his contributions being accepted, 



670 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

with much favor, by the " /SVi/em Qazetle^'' the '■'■Haverhill 
Gazette^'' and the '•'■Boston Commercial Gazette^^ especially by 
the latter, the editor of which, Samuel L. Kuapp, was a man of 
marked culture and good taste. A series of Garrison's articles, 
published in the " Salem Gazeite,^^ over the signature of 
"Aristides," attracted much attention in political circles, and 
were highly commended by Robert Walsh, then editor of the 
" National Gazette'^ (Philadelphia), who attributed their author- 
ship to the venerable Timothy Pickering. In 1824, during the 
somewhat protracted absence of Mr, Allen, the '■'■ HcraliV' was 
edited by Garrison, who, also, superintended its printing. 
About the same time, his enthusiastic nature became so inter- 
ested in the cause of the Greeks, then struggling for their free- 
dom, that he was strongly inclined to seek admission to the 
Military Academy at West Point, with a view of preparing 
himself for a military career. In 1826, at the close of his 
apprenticeship, he became proprietor and editor of a journal in 
his native town, entitled " The Free Press f^ and toiled arduous- 
ly, putting his articles in type without committing them to 
paper. The enterprise, however, proved unsuccessful, and he 
sought and obtained employment, for awhile, as a journeyman 
printer, in Boston ; where, in 1827, he became the editor of the 
" National Philanthropist^^'' the first journal ever established for 
the advocacy of the cause of " total abstinence." Before the 
close of its first year, the journal changed proprietors ; and 
during the next year, 1828, he joined a friend in the publication 
of " The Journal of the Times" at Bennington, Vermont. This 
journal supported the claims of John Quincy Adams to the 
presidency, and was devoted in part to the interests of peace, 
temperance, anti-slavery, and kindred reforms ; but it failed of 
a sufficient support, and was discontinued. During his residence 
at Bennington, Mr. Garrison's influence, in regard to slavery, was 



WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 571 

felt not only in that place, but, also, throughout the entire 
State, and led to the transmission, to Congress, of an anti- 
slavery memorial, which was more numerously signed than any 
similar paper ever before submitted to that tribunal. This 
subject, indeed, had now fairly enlisted the full interest of Mr. 
Garrison's mind, and he delivered an address before a religious 
and philanthropic assembly, held on the -Ith of July, 1829, in 
the Park street church, Boston, which excited general attention 
by the boldness and vigor of its tones. 

His " mission" — as the Germans would say — had found him, 
and a larger sphere of usefulness was opening before him. 
During the previous year (1828) he had become acquainted at 
Boston with one Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker and an abolition- 
ist, who had been publishing, in Baltimore, since 182-4, " The 
Genius of Universal Emancipation^'' (established in 1821), "an 
anti-slavery paper which was read only by a few people in the 
city and adjacent country, mostly of his own faith, and which 
the southern people thought was not of sufficient consequence to 
be put down." The Baptist and the Quaker met and " struck 
hands" on this one common ground — their duty to the slave. 
So, in the autumn of 1829, Garrison went to Baltimore and 
joined Mr. Lundy in the editorship of the Genius ; making, in 
the first number issued under the new auspices, a distinct 
avowal of the doctrine of immediate emancipation. Mr. Lundy 
was a gradual emancipationist and a believer in colonization, . 
which Mr. Garrison entirely repudiated ; but, as each of them 
appended his initials to his articles, the difference of opinion in- 
terposed no obstacle to a hearty co-operation. But the zeal of 
the new editor produced an unwonted excitement among the sup- 
porters of slavery, while his denunciation of the colonization 
project aroused an equal amount of hostility among the friends 
of the paper. " From the moment," says Garrison (in a speech 



572 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

at Philadelphia, 1863), "that the doctrine of immediate emanci- 
pation was enunciated in the columns of the Genius, as it had 
not been tip to that hour, it was like a bombshell in the camp of 
the subscribers themselves; and from every direction letters 
poured in, that they had not bargained for such a paper as that, 
or for such doctrines, and they desired to have no more copies 
sent to them." Lundy seems to have borne patiently with the 
ruinous " rumpus" which his partner had raised ; but an event 
Boon occurred which occasioned a dissolution of the firm. It so 
happened that the ship Francis, belonging to a Mr. Francis 
Todd of NewburjqDort, Massachusetts, came to Baltimore, Avhere 
she took in a cargo of slaves for the Louisiana market. It 
roused all the righteous indignation of Mr. Garrison, who 
denounced it as an act of " domestic piracy," and declared his 
intention to " cover with thick infamy all who were engaged in 
the transaction." Baltimore had patiently stood Lundy and his 
Genius for some years, but it could not brook this ferocious 
attack upon a business which was not only legitimized by use 
in their city but " by which they had their gain." Garrison 
was prosecuted for libel, indicted and convicted at the May terra 
(1830) of the city, court, for " a gross and malicious libel" 
against the owner and master of the vessel, though the Castom 
House records proved that the number of slaves transported 
really exceeded that of the editor. In spite of the able defence 
of his counsel, Charles Mitchell, who occupied a position at 
the Baltimore bar second only to that of William Wirt, he was 
fined fifty dollars and costs of the court. Mr. Todd, in a civil 
suit, afterward obtained a verdict against him for one thousand 
dollars — but the judgment, probably on account of his well 
known poverty, was never enforced. During his imprisonment, 
he was considerately placed in a cell^ recently vacated by a man 
who had been hung for murder — but he experienced much 



■WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 573 

kiudiioss from tlie jailer aiul his family — and was visited 
frequently by Lundy and a few other Quaker friends. The 
northern press, generally, condemned his imprisonment as 
unjust, the South Carolina ^lanumission Society protested 
against it as an infraction of the liberty of the press, and his 
letters to the different newspapers, as well as several sonnets 
which lie inscribed upon the walls of his cell, excited considerable 
attention in various quarters. After a forty-nine days' confine- 
ment he was released by the payment of the fine by Mr. 
Arthur Tappan, a New York merchant, whose generosity 
anticipated, by a few days, a similar purpose on the part of 
Henry Clay, whose interest had been awakened by a mutual 
friend. To Daniel "Webster, also, Mr. Garrison was indebted, 
soon after his release, for sympathy and encouragement. 

Freed from his chains, the dauntless champion of the op- 
pressed issued a prospectus for an anti-slavery journal to be 
published at Washington, and with the design of exciting a 
deeper and more wide-spread interest in his proposed enter- 
prise, he prepared a course of lectures on slavery, which he 
delivered in Philadelphia, New York, New Haven, Hartford, 
and Boston. In Baltimore, he failed to obtain a hearing. In 
Boston, all efforts to procure a suitable public place for his 
lectures having failed, he boldly announced, in the daily prints, 
that if no such place could be obtained within a certain speci- 
fied time, he would address the people on " The Common." 
The only hall placed at his disposal was by an association of 
infidels; and Mr. Garrison accepted the offer, and there de- 
livered his lectures; taking care, however, to distinctly avow 
his belief in Christianity, as the only power which could break 
the bonds of the enslaved. These lectures were largely attended, 
and were instrumental in awakening an increased interest in 
the subject. His experiences as a lecturer convinced him that 



574 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

Boston, rather than "Washington, was the best location for an 
anti-slavery paper ; and that a revolution of public sentiment 
at the North must precede emancipation in the South. It was 
in Boston, accordingly, that he issued (January 1st 1831) the 
first, number of the ^^ Liberator, ^^ taking for his motto, "my 
country is the world ; my countrymen arc all mankind ;" and 
declaring, in the face of an almost universal apathy upon the 
subject of slavery, '■^ I am in earnest; I will not equivocate ; I will 
not excuse ; I will not retraxit a single word, and I will he heard^ And 
again : " On this question my influence, humble as it is, is felt 
at this moment to a considerable extent, and shall he felt in 
coming years — not perniciously, but beneficially — not as a curse, 
but as a blessing ; and posterity will bear testimony that 
I was right." 

Yet this earnest young man, who so defiantly threw down 
the gauntlet to the world, was without means, or promise of 
support from any quarter, and his partner in the proposed 
enterprise, Mr. Isaac Knapp, was as poor as himself Fortu- 
nately they were both afforded employment in the office of the 
^^ Christian Examiner,^^ the foreman of which was a warm per- 
sonal friend of Garrison — and were thus enabled to exchange 
their labor for the Use of the type, Mr. Garrison working labor- 
iously at type-setting all day, and spending the night in his edito- 
rial capacity. The initial number was at length issued, and the 
young men waited anxiously to see what encouragement they 
should receive. The first cheering return for their labors 
was the receipt of fifty dollars, with a list of twenty-five sub- 
scribers, from James Forten, a wealthy colored citizen of Phila- 
delphia, and they cast aside all doubt as to their future. At 
the expiration of three weeks they were enabled to open an 
office for themselves; but, for nedrly two years, their very 
restricted resources obliged them to reside in the office, making 



WILLIAM LLOYD GAKKISON. 576 

their beds upon the floor, and subsistii)g upon the plainest and 
humblest fare. In all sections of the country, both North and 
South, the " Liberator'''' attracted general attention, finding 
sympathy in some quarters, while in others it was denounced 
as fanatical and incendiary. The Hon. Harrison Gray Otis, 
then mayor of Boston, having been urged, by a southern magis- 
trate, to suppress the journal by law, if possible, wrote in reply 
that his ofl&cers had " ferreted out the paper and its editor, 
whose offtce was an obscure hole, his only auxiliary a negro 
boy, his supporters a very few insignificant persons of all col- 
ors." Almost every mail, at this period, brought threats of 
assassination to Mr. Garrison, if he persisted in publishing his 
sheet ; and in December, i831, an act was passed by the Legisla- 
ture of Georgia, offering a reward of $5000 to any one who 
should arrest, bring to trial, and prosecute to conviction, under 
the laws of that State, the editor and proprietor of the obnox- 
ious journal. His friends, becoming alarmed for his safety, 
urged his arming himself for defence ; but being a non-resistant, 
he was conscientiously restrained from following their advice. 

On the 1st of January, 1832, he, with eleven others, organ- 
ized " The New England (afterwards the Massachusetts) Anti- 
Slavery Society," upon the principle of immediate emancipation ; 
and this was the parent of the numerous affiliated societies by 
which, for many years, the anti-slavery question "was so per- 
sistently kept before the public eye. In the spring of the same 
year, he published a work, entitled " Thoughts on African 
Colonization," etc., setting forth, at length, the grounds of his 
opposition to that scheme. Immediately after (1833), he went 
to England as an agent of the New England Anti-Slavery 
Society, for the purpose of securing the co-operation of the peo- 
ple of Great Britain, in measures for the promotion of emancipa- 
tion in the United States, and as opposed to the colonization 



576 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

sclieme. He was cordially received by Wilberforce, Buxton, 
and tlieir noble associates ; and, as the result of his statements 
and influence, Wilberforce, and eleven of his most prominent 
coadjutors, joined in the issue of a protest against the American 
Colonization Society, whose plans they pronounced delusive, 
and a hindrance to the abolition of slavery. While in England, 
through his influence also, Mr. George Thompson, one of the 
most prominent of the anti-slavery champions in Great Britain, 
was induced to visit the United States as an anti-slavery 
lecturer. 

Shortly after Mr. Garrison's return to America, " The Ameri- 
can Anti-Slavery Society" was formed at Philadelphia, upon 
the principles advocated by him, and the " Declaration of senti- 
ments" issued by the Society, an elaborate manifesto of its 
principles, aims and methods, was also prepared by him. Pub- 
lic interest in the subject had, by this time, deepened into ex- 
citement, and this, intensified to the highest degree, developed 
a m bocratic spirit; so that, for two or three years, the assem- 
bling of an anti-slavery meeting, almost anywhere in the free 
States, provoked riotous demonstrations, dangerous alike to 
property and life. Mr. Thompson (before referred to) arrived 
here from England, in 1834 ; but so great was the excitement 
occasioned by his presence here, that he found it prudent to re- 
turn across the Atlantic, leaving his promised work unfinished. 

In October 1835, a mob, composed of persons who were de- 
scribed in the journals of the day as " gentlemen of property and 
standing," broke up a meeting of the Female Anti-Slavery 
Society, at Boston, and Mr. Garrison, who was announced as 
one of the speakers of the occasion, was seized and, partially 
denuded of his clothing, was violently dragged through the 
streets to City Hall ; where, as the only means of saving his life, 
he was committed to jail by the mayor, on the nominal charge of 



WILLIAM LLOYD GAEKISON. 577 

being "a disturl)cr of tlic peace!" IIo was, however, released 
the next day, and sent, under protection of the civic authorities, 
to a phice of safety in the country, leaving pencilled upon the 
walls of the cell which he had occupied, the following inscription: 
" William Lloyd Garrison Avas put into this cell on Wednesday 
afternoon, October, 21, 1835, to save him from the violence of 
a " respectable and influential" mob, who sought to destroy him, 
for preaching the abominable and dangerous doctrine, that all 
men arc created equal, and that all oppression is odious in the 
sight of God. Hail, Columbia ! cheers for the Autocrat of 
Eussia, and Sultan of Turkey I Eeader, let this inscription re- 
main, till the last slave in this land be loosed from his fetters !" 
In the discussion of the peace question which followed these 
scenes of violence, Mr. Garrison took a prominent part as a 
champion of non-resistance ; and, in 1838, led the way in the 
organization of the " New England Non-resistance Society ;" 
the " Declaration of Sentiments" issued by them, being also his 
work. About this time, also, arose the question of the rights 
of women as members of the anti-slavery societies, and Mr. 
Garrison earnestly advocated their right, if they so wished, to 
vote, serve on committees, and take part in discussions, on 
equal footing with men. The American Anti-Slavery Society 
split upon this question, in 1840 ; and, in the " World's Anti- 
Slavery Convention," held during the same year in London, 
Mr. Garrison, as a delegate from that society, refused to take his 
seat, because the female delegates from the United States were 
excluded. During this visit to England, he was invited to 
Staflbrd House, by the beautiful and distinguished Duchess of 
Sutherland, who treated him with marked attention, and at 
whose request he sat to one of the most eminent artists of the 
day for his portrait, which was added to the treasures of that 

palace. 

37 



578 MEN" OF OUR DAY. 

In 1843, lie was chosen president of tlie society, which office 
he continued to hold until 1865. 

In 1843, a small volume of his " sonnets and other poems" 
was published ; and, in 1846, he made his third visit, on anti- 
slavery business, to Great Britain. In 1852, appeared a volume 
of '* selections," from his " writings and speeches." 

Mr. Garrison has, from the first, kept himself, as an abolition- 
ist, free from all political or religious complications, or affinities. 
Believing most thoroughly, as expressed in the motto of the 
Liberator^ that the Constitution of the United States, in its re- 
lations to slavery, was " a covenant with death and an agree- 
ment with hell," he has acted with singular and unwavering 
consistency. It has been well said,* that " Avhile everybody 
else in the United States had something else to conserve, some 
side issues to make, some points to carry. Garrison and his band 
had but one tiling to say — that American slavery is a sin ; but one 
thing to do — to preach immediate repentance, and forsaking of 
sin. They withdrew from every organization Avhich could in 
any way be supposed to tolerate or hold communion with it, 
and walked alone, a small, but always active and powerful 
body. They represented the pure abstract form of every 
principle as near as it is possible for it to be represented by 
human frailty." 

In 1861, when the war of the rebellion broke out, Mr. 
Garrison did not for a moment hesitate to throw the whole 
weight of his intellectual and moral support in favor of the 
Government, contrary to the course of many of his fellow 
abolitionists, and of many of the so-called peace-men, who 
tiiought that because they could not take up arms in defence of 
any cause, they could neither acknowledge the constitutional 
right of the North to enforce obedience to the laws, and sup- 

*By Mrs. Stowe, in the Watchman and Reflector, May 24th, 186G. 



VflLLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 679 

press rebellion, nor rejoice iu any of its victories. From the 
very first, Mr. Garrison rejoiced in evcr}^ triumph of the Federa.' 
arms, as a patriot and a philanthropist; and he foresaw the 
inevitable disruption of slavery, as he had never expected to 
see it. In all his criticisms upon the course of the administra- 
tion, he remembered its grave responsibilities, and placed great 
faith in the personal integrity of President Lincoln. In April, 
18G5, at the invitation of Secretary Stanton, he visited Fort 
Sumter, to attend the celebration of its recapture, and went up 
also, to Charleston, where he addressed a ^reat gathering of the 
freedmen, who attended him with flowers on his departure. In 
May, 1865, at the anniversary meeting, in New York, of the 
American Anti-Slavery Society, of Vv-hich he was president, — 
after vainly trying to persuade his associates to disband, on 
the ground that, slavery being abolished, the society became a 
misnomer, and ceased to have a reason for existing, while for 
any service yet to be performed for the freedmen, it was far 
better to work in unison with the great body of loyalists all 
over the North, than to continue in their hitherto enforced 
isolation, — he resigned his office, and withdrew from the 
society. 

Partly on the same ground, and partly because the paper 
had never received adequate support, he discontinued the pub- 
lication of the " Liberator^'' in December 1865, at the close of 
its thirty-fifth volume. 

He was chosen one of the vice-presidents of the American 
Freedman's Union Commission ; and in May, 1867, his health 
having been impaired by a serious fall, he made a fourth visit 
to England, and first visit to the Continent, to join his son and 
married daughter. In London he was complimented with a ban- 
quet by some of the most distinguished men of the kingdom, 
including John Bright, John Stuart Mill, the Duke of Argyll 



680 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

and Ear] Russell, the latter of whom made a handsome apol- 
ogy for his mistaken utterances during our civil war. At 
various other places in England and Scotland he was publicly 
entertained in a similar manner for his connection with the 
anti-slavery cause, and also with the temj^erance cause, in 
America ; and, at Edinburgh, the freedom of the city was pre- 
sented to him by the Lord Provost, an honor never before 
bestowed upon an American, except Mr. Peabody. At Paris he 
attended and addressed a World's Anti-Slavery Conference, and 
returned to America in November, 1867, since which he has 
resided in Boston. During the same year, also, Mr. Garrison's 
inestimable services to the cause of humanity were gracefully 
and heartily acknowledged in the form of a testimonial, amount- 
ing to about $33,000, raised from the nation at large, by public 
and private appeals, and presented to him in a strictly private 
manner. 

The letter of the committee who presented this testimonial, 
contains a grateful tribute to the unflagging zeal of Mr. Gar- 
rison in the cause of freedom, and assures him of the truly 
national character of the testimonial, coming from every 
quarter of the country, and from all classes of people. Mr. 
Garrison, in his reply, writes as follows : — " Little, indeed, did 
I know or anticipate how prolonged, or hoAV virulent would be 
the struggle when I lifted up the standard of immediate emanci- 
pation, and essayed to rouse the nation to a sense of its guilt 
and danger. But, having put my hand to the plow, how could 
I look back ? For, in a cause so righteous, I could not doubt 
that, having turned the furrows, if I sowed it in tears, I should 
one day reap in joy. But, whether permitted to live to witness 
the abolition of slavery or not, I felt assured that, as I demanded 
nothing that was not clearly in accordance with justice and 



WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 681 

humanity, some time or other, if remembered ;it all, I slioukl 
stand vindicated in tlie e.yes of my countrymen." 

In connection with this, we may quote a few paragraphs 
from a recent letter of this whole-souled pioneer of emanci- 
pation : " I thank you," says he to an old and valued friend, 
"for the warm and generous approval of my anti-slavery career, 
and rejoice with you in the total abolition of slavery, through- 
out our_ land. If, as a humble instramentality, in effecting 
the overthrow of that nefarious system, I have been promi 
nent, it has not been of my seeking ; for, at the outset, I ex- 
pected to follow others, not to lead; and certainly, I neither 
sought nor desired conspicuity. Standing for a time alone under 
the banner of immediate and unconditional emancipation, I 
naturally excited tlie special enmity and wrath of the whole 
country, as the 'head and front' of abolition offending; and now 
that the cause, once so odious, is victorious, and four millions of 
bondmen have had their fetters broken; it is not very surprising 
that, in this 'era of good feeling,' my labors and merits are 
immensely overrated. Others have labored more abundantly, 
encountered more perils, and endured more privations and 
sufferings; but every one has been indis^^ensable, in his own 
place, to bring about the good and glorious result ; and it is not 
a question of comparison as to who was earliest in the field, or 
who labored the most efficiently, but one of sympathy for the 
oppressed, and an earnest desire to see their yoke immediately 
broken. There should be no boasting on the one hand, nor 
jealousy on the other. Therefore, while disclaiming any 
peculiar deserts on my part, I think the 'testimonial,' which 
■has been so unexpectedly raised in approval of my anti-slavery 
career, will not be viewed by any of my co-laborers as invidious, 
but rather as symbolizing a common triumph, and a common 
vindication." 



WENDELL PHILLIPS. 



■5,0^ OME writer has said, that " oratory is a peculinrly 
G^3\ American gift — not that there have not been elsewhere 
c*^^ eloquent speakers, who could sway senates at their 
^ will — but, in America, public speaking is so universal, 
and the masses are so intelligent, that the inducements to culti- 
vate an art, which will enable the speaker to control the listen- 
ing crowds, are much stronger than in other countries." It is 
undoubtedly true that there are more examples of brilliant 
eloquence in the pulpit, at the bar, and on the platform before 
public assemblies, here than in any other country where the 
English tongue is spoken ; and, though our composite language 
may not possess the stateliness of the Castilian, the liquid music 
of the Italian, or the colloquial brilliancy of the French, there 
are extant orations in it, which are surpassed in beauty and 
grandeur by those of no other living tongue. 

There is a tendency among our orators to verbal difi'iiseness ; 
their speeches lack condensation, and hence, though they sound 
well, when delivered ore rotundo, they do not read so well. We 
miss the vigor, pith, and points which were, in part, supplied 
by the earnestness of the speaker's delivery. He is, all things 
considered, the most effective orator, who, with all the graces 
of manner, voice, and action, utters an address Avhose every 

word has been carefully selected, and conveys just the shade of 
582 



WENDELL PHILLIPS, 583 

meaning intended, neither less nor more, and, at the same time, 
so combines his words and sentences as to produce the best 
effect of which the language is capable. It is just tlic power 
of fully accomplishing this, which makes Mr. Phillips ilte finest 
orator in Christendom. His position, in this respect, is conceded 
alike by friends and foes. 

Some have doubted whether eloquence was a natural or an 
acquired endowment, and those who inclined to the latter view 
have adduced the long and painful efforts of Demosthenes ; and, 
in our own time, of Henry Ward Beechcr, to overcome natural 
difficulties of delivery. We cannot doubt that these men, and 
many others, have triumphed over great obstacles, in attaining a 
ready and effective utterance of the great thoughts which were 
seeking deliverance from the prison-house of the brain ; but the 
eloquence was behind all these obstacles, and it would have 
vent. It was the gift of God, and however it might be ob- 
scured at first, by imperfection of voice, by a faltering and hesi- 
tating tongue, or other impediments of speech, it was there, and 
must eventually force its way out. Happy those who, like Mr. 
Phillips, possess naturally all these graces of delivery, and who 
owe little to the help of art. Mr. Phillips' first public oration, 
delivered imi}romi>tu, possesses all the fine characteristics of his 
later ones, was delivered with as much fervor and with as pow- 
erful an effect as any of the thousands since, which have held 
listening crowds in speechless delight. There was the same 
careful and apparently instinctive choice of the best words to 
express his thoughts, the same keen and polished invective, the 
same system and order in his arrangement, and the same fervid 
and brilliant peroration. If he has never improved on that 
eloquent address, delivered now more than thirty years ago, it 
is because that it was so perfect a production as to leave no 
room for improvement. 



58-i MEN OF OUR DAY. 

Wendell Phillips comes of the best blood of the Puritan 
and revolutionary stock. A lineal descendant of Rev. George 
Phillips, an eminent clergyman and scholar, who emigrated to 
Massachusetts from Norfolk county, England, in 1630, and 
served as the learned, wise, and zealous pastor of Watertown, 
Massachusetts, for fourteen years, he numbers, also, among his 
ancestry, direct or collateral, Samuel Phillips, Jr., Lieutenant- 
Governor of Massachusetts in 1801-2, and founder of Phillips' 
academy, Andover ; John Phillips, LL.D., the founder and 
liberal contributor to Phillips' academy, Exeter, New Hamp- 
shire, Dartmouth college, Phillips' academy, Andover, and 
Andover Theological seminary ; his honor, AVilliam Phillips, 
Jr., of Boston, also a Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts, and 
his father, Hon. John Phillips, who was the first mayor of 
Boston. "Wendell Phillips was born in Boston, November 29, 
1811, and after enjoying the advantages of the best schools of 
his native city, entered Harvard college, where he graduated 
with high honors, in 1831, and commencing the study of law in 
the Cambridge law school, received his diploma there in 1833, 
and was admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1834, 

An accomplished scholar, with a far wider range of general 
culture than is ordinarily possessed by educated young men at 
the age of twenty-four, and with an intense fastidiousness of 
taste and thought, which ever made absolute perfection its ideal, 
Mr. Phillips was in danger, at this time, of becoming a mere 
purist, a dilettante, frittering away his noble powers on the 
spelling of a word, or shades of thought too nice to be distin- 
guished by any common mind, or in some other equally profitless 
pursuit, which should squander, rather than exercise his great 
gifts. But he was happily diverted to more profitable and 
useful labors, by the great events which occurred, just as he 
came into public life. 



WENDELL PHILLIPS. 585 

It Avas the era of tlic lirst great anti-slavery cxcitemeiir. Tl.o 
wliole country was in arms at tlic Lohest of tlio slave })o\vcr, 
which demanded the putting down of the men who had dared 
to question its authority. For his attacks on this monster 
iniquity, William Llo}^! Garrison, as we have already seen, was 
first assailed with the most bitter and abusive language, and 
afterwards dragged through the streets of Boston by a mob, for 
his advocacy of the cause of freedom. The people of the North, 
with but few exceptions, were wedded to the idol of slavery, 
and were indignant that any man should dare to offend the 
South, by whose trade they had their gain. 

Phillips had witnessed the indignities offered to Garrison, and 
his cruel persecution for his bold defence of freedom against 
oppression; and the old patriotic, freedom-loving blood which 
had made the Phillipses among the foremost of the patriots of 
the Revolution, was stirred within him." He avowed himself an 
abolitionist and co-worker with Garrison in 1836, and in 1839 
withdrew from the practice of law because he could not con- 
scientiously take the oath to support and defend the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, believing, as he did, that that docu- 
ment was tainted with complicity with slavery, and hence, as 
he forcibly expressed it, was " a covenant with death and an 
agreement with hell." 

He threw himself into the front of the battle against slaver}'-, 
and for thirty years and more has fought oppression ; at first 
with a little but gallant band, abused, hated, threatened, a price 
set on his head, and the object of all the obloquy and scorn 
men could visit on him. After years of this strife, in which he 
and Mr. Garrison were always the standard bearers, there began 
to be signs of coming success for their principles ; then Phillips 
always took a long stride forward, and fought on, waiting for the 
masses to advance. His mind is so constituted that so Ions; as 



686 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

there is a possible good to be obtained, an ideal, however vague 
and shadowy, to be reached, he cannot rest, and if the whole 
world were to advance to his ideal of to-day, he would be 
found far beyond in the distance, with aims and hopes and ends 
yet to be attained. 

With how much of suffering and anxiety he has maintained 
this long struggle, none but himself can ever know. He put 
aside for it a brilliant future in his profession, and made opposi- 
tion to slavery the great business of his life. Yet such was his 
winning eloquence, his vast learning, and his brilliant and 
versatile powers as a lecturer, that when he could be induced 
to lecture on any other subject, he drew larger audiences than 
any other man. He knew the unpopularity of his favorite 
topic, and shrewdly availed himself of his great abilities to 
secure for it a hearing. For years, when the lecture com- 
mittees applied to him to address audiences and asked his terms, 
his reply was : " If I speak on slavery, nothing : if on any other 
subject, one hundred dollars." 

His first noteworthy speech on slavery was unpremeditated, 
but its thrilling eloquence told on the audience, nine-tenths of 
whom were bitterly opposed to him. The occasion w^as this. 
In the autumn of 1837, Eev. E. P. Lovejoy bad been murdered 
at Alton, Illinois, and his pres-s broken up, b}^ a mob, mostly 
from Missouri, on account of the anti-slavery principles he had 
avowed in his paper. A meeting was called in Boston, by Eev. 
W. E. Channing and others, to assemble in Faneuil Hall (the 
use of wliieli was at first denied but finally reluctantly granted), 
to notice in a suitable manner Mr. Lovejoy's death as a martyr 
to freedom. After some addresses, a Mr. Austin, attorney- 
general of Massachusetts, rose and defended, in a very bitter and 
violent speech, the rioters, declared that Lovejoy came to his 
di^ath by hi.s own imprudence, and that the utterance of such 



WENDELL PHILLIPS. 587 

sentiments as he liacl avowed, ought to be suppressed. 'Mr. 
PhilHps replied in one of the most eloquent and scathing speeches 
ever delivered, running a parallel between the conduct of 
Warren at Bunker Hill, and Lovejoy at Alton, so effective, that 
the audience, who had, at lirst, been determined that he should 
not be permitted to speak, at last greeted him with cheers. 

Mr. Phillips was most thoroughly in his element at the anni- 
versaries of the American Anti-Slavery Society, when, from year 
to year, he would review the progress made, and hail upon the 
pro-slavery leaders and partisans such a storm of invective, every 
sentence polished but keen as a battle axe, that those of them 
who were present would writhe under it, as if in intense agony. 
Year after year, such men as Isaiah Eynders and his comrades, 
would attempt to break up these anniversaries by mob- violence, 
and often was Mr. Phillips' life threatened ; but he could not be 
put down. There was that power and dignity in his manner, 
which would quell and silence the fiercest mob ; and when they 
were hushed, he Avould take the opportunity to say his severest 
and bitterest words. 

No man living excels him in power over an audience. The 
writer once listened to his lecture on Toussaint L'Ouverture, 
and was surprised to see a man in the audience well known as 
a Democrat and a strongly pro-slavery partisan, applauding him 
to the echo, and most vigorously in those passages which were 
most intensely anti-slavery, and most decided in their depre- 
ciation of the white general (Napoleon), as compared with the 
negro (Toussaint). 

At the close of the lecture, falling in with this Democrat, the 
writer cculd not avoid saying to him, "How happens it that 
you, an 'ntense pro-slavery man, should applaud and enjoy the 
hard hits and telling blows of "Wendell Phillips against 
slavery?" "Oh!" was the reply, "of course I don't believe a 



588 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

word he says, but be did say it so well and so neatly, that 1 
couldn't help applauding." Nothing but genuine eloquence of 
the highest character could have produced such an effect as 
that. 

When Mr. Delano, of the London Times, was in this country, a 
friend asked him to go with him and hear "Wendell Phillips; 
he declined at first, saying that he had no wish to listen to a 
foaming abolition lecture ; but at the urgent request of his friend 
finally consented. The lecture closed, his friend, who had 
watched his countenance during the lecture, asked how he was 
pleased. " Pleased !" answered the editor, "I never heard any 
thing like it ; we have no orator in England who can compare 
with him. He is the most eloquent speaker living." 

Mr. Phillips has not expended all his force on opposition to 
slavery; temperance, peace, the rights of woman, and other 
measures of reform, have ever found in him a ready, powerful, 
and eloquent advocate. His devotion to woman partakes much 
of the lofty character of the best days of chivahy, and leads one 
inevitably to the conviction that his own wife must have very 
nearly filled his exalted ideal of the true woman. 

The few review articles from the pen of Mr. Phillips on other 
than reform topics, his published volume of orations, and the 
lectures on scientific subjects which he had delivered (the lec- 
ture on " The Lost Arts" has been repeated, it is said, mnny hun- 
dreds of times), indicate the breadth of his scholarship, and the 
great loss which science and literature have sustained, in relin- 
quishing him to become the Apostle of Eeform. 

Since the war, Mr. Phillips has not, as Mr. Garrison did so 
gracefully, accepted the verdict of the people that his work was 
accomplished, and that henceforth he might peacefully enjoy 
the victories which his good sword had won. A little younger 
than his friend Garrison, he has more of the Ironsides blood in 



WENDELL PHILLIPS. 539 

him tlitui lie, and lie prefers to fight on, tliougli it bo with 
invisible foes, or even with wind-nulls, like the chivalric J)on 
Quixote. His ideal jnau is placed on a higher level than ever 
before, and his long continued use of invective has made him 
soured and bitter toward all men who do not fully come up to it. 
He is a man who will always do best to head a forlorn hope, 
always win the greatest triumphs Avhen in a minority. Indeed 
it is impossible for him to be anywhere else. The atmosphere 
of a majority, in agreement with him, oppresses him as an 
enclosed house does a Eocky mountain trapper. He cannot 
breathe in it. His action in regard to the recent nominations of 
the Republican party can hardly be termed either wise or just; 
but the party is powerful enough to permit the gallant warrior, 
the hero of so many battles with oppression, to disport himself 
as lie pleases, and in remembrance of his past services, to bear 
with some seeming waywardness. 

In private life Mr. Phillips bears the reputation of being one 
of the most genial and loveable of men, and in all the social 
relations of family and friends, his presence adds new zest to 
societ}', and gives increased pleasure lo the circles which arc 
favored with it. 



REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 



^1[|||E hazard little in saying that there is no living man in 
9 1 j I America whose name is more widely known than that 
*(^^ of the Plymouth pastor. Other clergymen, other public 
*^*^ lecturers, other authors, other reformers (for he is 
equally popular in all these capacities), may have a wide spread 
local reputation ; they may be quite well known in one section 
or another of the country, and their names may have some 
currency in all sections, but from the inhabitant of the re- 
motest province of the Dominion of Canada on the northeast, 
to the Rio Grande in the southeast, from Aliaska to the 
Capes of Florida, there is no man of ordinary intelligence, 
black or white, who does not know something of Henry Ward 
Beecher. 

Yet this man has held no civil of&ce, or been a candidate 
for any ; he has commanded no armies, fought no battles with 
carnal weapons ; he is not a millionaire, nor has he ever pos- 
sessed the fortune to endow or establish a college, a hospital, a 
seminary, or an asylum. He is eloquent, but he has not the 
musical voice, nor does he utter the polished periods of Phillips, 
or the grand and stately sentences of Sumner ; he is brave and 
fearless, but pluck is not so rare an attribute in American 
character, as to make its possessor an object of such luiiversal 

note. 

590 



REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 591 

Yet it is certain that lie possesses qualities and talents which 
have made him, in some respects, the foremost man, and the 
finest representative of the best traits of American character 
our country has yet produced. 

For twenty-one 3^ears, he has drawn to the plain church 
eilifice in which lie preaches, in winter and summer, iu sjn-ing 
and autumn, a constant congregation of from twenty-five hundred 
to three thousand persons, in fair weather and ^ul, and very 
often hundreds more have endeavored in vain to get Avithin the 
sound of his voice. Among his audiences, are men from every 
State in the Union, some of them renting sittings for the year, 
to secure seats during the month or two they may be in New 
York. The annual rental of the pews of this church brings in 
a revenue of from $40,000 to §50,000, and has steadil}^ increased 
from year to year. 

No such audience could have been maintained for a fourth 
of that period by any clap-trap or artifice on tlio part of the 
preacher ; certainly not in a community as intelligent as that of 
Brooklyn. 

But the delivering of three discourses a week, of such 
wonderful freshness, originality, and eloquence, that when re- 
ported for the press, as they have been regularh', they jave 
secured hundreds of thousands of readers (and during the whole 
period of twenty-one years, he has never repeated a sermon, 
so affluent is his imagination, and so abundant his mental re- 
sources), and the pastoral care of a church now numbering 
nearly two thousand members, have by no means exhausted 
the extraordinary vitality of this remarkable man. During a 
period of ten or twelve years, he was a constant contributor to 
the Independent newspaper, his articles being signed with an 
asterisk, and was generally, but erroneously supposed to be the 
editor of the paper. From 1861 to 1863, he was its cditor-in 



592 MEN^ OF OUR DAY. 

chief, and wrote sucli vigorous stirring leaders, as are seldom 
founc'. in any paper ; and since discontinuing his connection 
with that paper, he has been a regular weekly contributor to 
others, beside frequent contributions to monthly periodicals. 

For the whole twenty-one years he has been an able and promi- 
nent leader in most of the measures of reform, addressing 
audiences all over the country at least thirty or forty times in 
the course of the year, on Anti-Slavery and Eepublican topics, 
Temperance, the Reformation of Morals, Juvenile Reform, etc., 
and until tbe past two or three years delivered about fifty 
lyceum lectures a year, from Maine to Minnesota. As the best 
extemporaneous platform speaker in America, he h:i> alwa3'-s 
been in demand on all anniversary occasions, and never failed 
to acquit himself with credit. He has found time to prepare 
several books of his own, and to revise volumes of his sermons, 
selected passages from his discourses, etc., which others have 
compiled. "Within the past year and a half he has written and 
published, first as a newspaper serial, and afterwards as a volume, 
a novel of New England life, and is understood to be now en- 
gaged upon an elaborate " Life of Christ." In the abundanca 
of these avocations, and the immense correspondence which 
they necessitate, he finds leisure for the cultivation of his artis- 
tic tastes, and his intense love of the beautiful, both in nature 
and art. He ranks very high as a connoisseur in all art mat- 
ters. His house is filled with choice pictures ; his large library 
contains the best works on art, many of them with costly 
illustrations ; and both in Brooklyn and at his Peekskill farm, 
where he spends much of his time during the later summer and 
sarly autumn, he has a great profusion of flowers. 

Let us turn now to the life history of this man, so wonderful 
''or I is genius, the versatility of his talents and his untiring 



REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 593 

industry, and see if, by so doing, we can obtain any insight into 
the sources of his great powers. 

The Beecher family is one of extraordinary gifts and intel 
lectual power. They trace their ancestry to John Beecher, whc 
came over to New Enghind with Davenport in 1630, and set- 
tled, with his mother, in New Haven. His descendants seem 
to have been favored in their choice of wives, and some of 
the best Scotch and Welsh blood in the nation has mingled 
with the powerful j^/i^si^-we of the English stock, to produce 
a combination of remarkable vitality and intellectual energy. 
Rev. Lyman Beecher, D. D., the fixther of Henry Ward, was 
one of the most remarkable men of the last generation. It 
was said of him that he was the father of more brains than 
any other man in America," and the remark was undoubtedly 
true. Of his thirteen children eleven grew up to adult age, 
and all his seven sous became clergymen, and most of them 
were distinguished for intellectual ability, while of the four 
daughters, two. Miss Catharine E. Beecher, and Mrs. Harriet 
Beecher Stowe, have won a world-wide reputation, the former 
by her able works on education, physiological, social, intel- 
lectual and domestic ; the latter by her brilliant fictions, which 
have achieved a greater success than was ever accorded to 
those of any other writer. Dr. Lyman Beecher was brought 
up on a farm, but entered Yale college in 1793, and graduated 
in 1797, with a fair standing. He was a vigorous original 
thinker, and after he entered the ministry soon attained a high 
reputation for the keenness of his dialectic powers, and the 
energy and fire which he threw into his public and private 
teachings. He v;as eloquent, wonderfully so, after his fashion, 
and his powerful denunciations of intemperance, and of the 
Unitarian dogmas, have never been surpassed in vividness or 

point. He wrote, too, on controversial subjects, with decided 

3S 



594 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

ability, and his written productions were remarkable for finish 
and purity of style. He was successively pastor of a Presby- 
terian church at Easthampton, Long Island, a Congregational 
church at Litchfield, Connecticut, and the Hanover Square 
(afterwards Bowdoin street) Congregational churcli, Boston. In 
1832, at the age of nearly fifty-seven, he was called to the presi- 
dency of the Lane Theological seminary, near Cincinnati, Ohio, 
where he remained till 1851, when he returned to Boston, and 
in 1856 to Brooklyn, where his last years were spent. He wa3 
thrice married. His first wife, the mother of Henry Ward 
Beecher, was a Miss Roxana Foote of Guilford, Connecticut, a 
woman of remarl^ble intellectual powers, great personal attrac- 
tions, and a most gentle, lovely, and engaging temper. The 
subject of our sketch inherits, from his father, his abundant 
vitality, his intellectual vigor and earnestness, his overflowing 
humor, and his power to move and thrill the masses ; and from 
his mother, his artistic tastes, his fondness for nature, his intui- 
tions toward the beautiful, and that delicac}'', tact, refinement 
and amiability, which have made him so widely popular. , 

Henry Ward Beecher was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, 
June 2-1, 1813. The first thirteen years of his life were passed 
in this quiet rural village, which had then a circle of intellec- 
tual, cultivated men and women, such as are not often found in 
much larger towns. When he was but little more than three 
years of age, he lost his mother, a great loss for a sensitive, 
affectionate, and thoughtful child ; but one made up, in jmrt, by 
the influence of the gifted and accomplished woman, who, some 
fourteen months later, took her place as the wife of Dr. Beecher. 
It is indicative of his thoughtfulness and afl'ection, ^''oung as he 
was, at the time of his mother's death, that having heard that 
she was to be buried in the ground, and again that she had gone 
to heaven, he commenced digging very earnestly under the 



REV. IIEXr.Y WARD BEECHER, 595 

window of her room, and could hardly be persuaded to desist, 
saying that " he wanted to dig down and get to heaven, whero 
his mamma was." 

As he grew older, he was a healthy, robust boy, active in all 
outdoor sports and exercises, a little clumsy perhaps, but affec- 
tionate and loving. He gave at this time but little promise of 
his subsequent intellectual power ; his voice was husky and 
thick, and he spoke so indistinctly that it was a cause of anxiety 
to his family ; he was shy, and had the misfortune of losing 
his memory, or rather becoming confused, from shyness, when 
called on to repeat what he had learned. In one of those inter- 
esting reminiscences of his childhood, in which he is prone to 
indulge in his lecture-room talks, he tells us that he was a; 
times very unhappy in childhood, from the difficulty he found 
in obtaining from any body any clear explanations of the great 
ethical and theological questions whicli haunted his soul. He 
had been brought up under a very rigid, Calvinistic training, 
and the dogmas of that creed puzzled and distressed him, and 
any efforts which were made to explain them, only confused 
him the more. In the end, liowever, this exercise of the mind 
with great, though but partially understood thouglits, may have 
been a benefit, for it made him more anxious, in his own minis- 
tr}^, to use the utmost clearness and simplicity in explaining 
these truths to the young, the simple and the ignorant. On his 
father's removal to Boston, he found himself in a new sphere 
He was sent to the Boston Latin school, but the impatience ot 
what seemed to him unmeaning forms, and the deficiency of his 
verbal memory, made the formal training there inexpressibly 
irksome to him. The wharves, and the ships, with their precious 
cargoes from the far orient, which lay beside them, roused his 
passion for the sea, and boy like, he resolved to become a sailor. 
His father somehow ascertained his restless craving, and like a 



596 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

skilful tactician, did not discourage it, but turned it into a 
better channel. He was sent to tlie ]\[ount Pleasant school, 
at Amherst Massachusetts, to study mathematics and other 
branches, to qualify himself, should he subsequently desire it, 
to enter the navy. Here, he fell under tho care of excellent 
and skilful teachers, who roused his interest and ambition in 
mathematical studies ; by careful and protracted training greatly 
improved his elocution, and gave him that impulse to study 
which made him a really brilliant student. Physiological stu- 
dies, and indeed those appertaining to physical science generally, 
had a strong attraction for him, and the charming illustrations 
drawn from nature and natural scenery which have begemmed 
so many of his discourses and lectures, have been among the re- 
sults of these favorite pursuits. 

Though decidedly a religious man in his college course (for 
he entered Amherst college in 1830) the superabundance of the 
humorous element in his nature, made him something of a Avag, 
never given to malicious or practical jokes, but brimfull and 
running over with fun ; and those who know him now, do not 
need to be assured that he did not leave all his humorous 
propensities behind him at Amherst. Yet this gay, joyous 
temper, was but the sparkle and foam at the surface ; below it 
there were depths of earnest tenderness, which demonstrated 
the truth of the old e})igram, that "tears are akin to laughter." 

His thorough previous training had given him more than the 
usual time for general reading and culture, and apart from his 
physiological and phrenological researches, he read largely of 
the works of the great divines and authors of the seventeenth 
centur}'-, and thus imbibed that intense love for the vigorous 
Saxon of that period, which has been one of the many elements 
of his great success as a preacher. The taste thus formed has 
beeu since sedulously cultivated, and it would surprise a person 



REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 597 

whose attention had not previously been called to it, to note 
how very few words, not of direct Saxon origin, are to be Ibund 
in his sermons. He has, indeed, been charged with making an 
unwarrantable use of the sermons of the old divines, but the 
charge is as absurd as it would be to accuse him of borrowing 
from "Webster's dictionary. lie has borrowed their quaint 
modes of thought, at times, but that was inevitable in the eftbrt 
to express the ideas of our time, in the garb of Saxon undefiled 
which they used and delighted in. Beyond this there has been 
no plagiarism on his part. 

His college course was not completed till 1834, two years 
after his fixthcr had accepted the presidency of Lane seminary, 
and thither he went to pursue his theological studies, and to 
find his father in the fore-front of the fierce battle, then waR-inn; 
between the old and new school parties in the Presbyterian 
church. Under such circumstances, his theological training 
was likely to be dialectic, rather than practical ; but it was not 
in the power of even his father's great influence to make him a 
controversialist. He reverenced his father, and, as in duty 
bound, took up arms in his defence, but his own theology was 
of a more peaceful, even if a less logical character, and though 
in the battle, he was not of it. His theological course completed, 
he married, and was ordained as pastor of a Presbyterian 
church in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. His fine descriptive powers, 
and the intensely sympathetic character of his preaching, led to 
his transference, two years later (in 1839), to the pastorate of the 
First Presbyterian church in Indianapolis. Here a wide door 
opened before him. He had not been long a resident of the 
capital of the State, before his church was thronged with 
crowds, eager to hear the young preacher, whose vivid word 
painting and power, in presenting Christ in his relations to 
humanity in all the forms of joy and sorrow, was something so 



598 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

new and impressive. He delivered a course of lectures to young 
men while in Indianapolis, wliich were published, and had an 
immense sale, which has continued to the present day. Even 
thus early, his tendency to combine, with his pastoral duties, 
labors not usually regarded as clerical, began to manifest itself. 
For a few months before his ordination, he had edited the 
organ of the Presbyterian church, at Cincinnati, in the absence 
of its responsible editor ; but at Indianapolis, in addition to his 
other duties, he undertook the editorship of an agricultural 
paper, and discussed, learnedly and interestingly too, the rota- 
tion of crops, manures, the best methods of cultivation, breeds 
of cattle, horses and swine, and other topics which most interest 
the farmer. He could not avoid, however, having a depart- 
ment for floriculture, and in that he poured out the wealth of 
his love of nature. The paper was popular, and reached a 
large circulation for a paper of that class. 

Meantime his reputation as a preacher was growing also. 
Eastern men, making a tour of the West, were attracted by the 
fame of the young Indianapolis pastor, went to hear him from 
curiosity, and were delighted. Some of these men being about 
to establish a new Congregational church in Brooklyn, New 
York, resolved to make the efibri to obtain him for their pastor. 

Their call was, after some hesitation, accepted, and in the 
autumn of 1847, he entered upon his labors with this new 
church in Brooklyn, to which the name of Plymouth church 
had been given. They met at first, and till their church edi- 
fice was erected, in a rude, plain, but capacious " tabernacle ;" 
and this was at once filled to overflowing. It very soon be- 
came the fashion to "go and hear Beecher;" and those who 
went once, were very sure to come again. The boyish-looking 
pastor (for though thirty-four years old when he removed to 
Brooklyn, he had a very youthful appearance), with his easy, 



REV. HEXRY WARD BEECIIER. 599 

careless ways, bad a faculty, when tlio inspiration was on liim, 
of winning all hearts, now creating a suiilo by the aptness and 
homeliness of some illustration, or by the slight touch of 
humor which he could not wholly suppress, and anon melting 
them to tears by his deep pathos, and his vivid portrayal of the 
Divine love. When the church edifice was completed, tliat too 
was soon filled, nay, crammed, with eager listeners. People 
said that it would not last ; that as soon as the excitement was 
over, hi* congregation would dwindle till it was no larger than 
that of other pastors : but it has kept up to its first standaril, 
or rather increased, for twenty-one years. Repeated attempts 
have been made by other denominations to find a man wlio 
would draw to their churches such a body of worshippers, but 
in vain. 

Meantime, Mr. Beecher never seemed elated by his success ; 
he knew, of course, as every strong man does, his power, but it 
did not make him vain. His church grew in numbers, and has 
been, for years past the largest evangelical church m the 
Northern States, if not in the country. In the Sunday-school, 
in the mission-schools, and in its ample support of all noble 
and good enterprises, Plymouth church has been worthy of its 
pastor. When he was installed as pastor, the congregation 
gave him a yearly salary of fifteen hundred dollars. They 
have increased it, till now, for two or three years past, it has 
been twelve thousand five hundred dollars. 

As we have already said, Mr. Beecher does a vast amouni 
of work outside of his duties as preacher and pastor. lie has 
so much vitality, such a power for work in him, that he would 
be wretched if he could not expend his vital force on good and 
worthy objects. He has made good ase of his physiological 
studies in keeping himself always in the best possible condition 
for efficient labor. He takes much active exercise, avoids 



600 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

whatever is likely to impair liis health, and trains himself to 
ihose economies of time and toil which are the result of 
thorough system. "When he works intellectually it is with all 
his might, and when he rests, he does it as thoroughly. Hia 
labors as contributor and editor of the Independent, his plat- 
form speeches, his lectures, his efforts to benefit the city of 
his adoption, his active political canvass in 1856 and 1860, 
for Fremont and Lincoln, his great expenditure of time, 
strength, zeal and money in raising the Long Island regiment 
and other troops for the war, his constant and effective labors 
in behalf of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions, and the 
efforts necessary to keep so large a congregation at a white 
heat, in their interest in behalf of the war and its objects, 
though in him only the natural and easy manifestation of his 
great capacity for work, would have been of themselves more 
than most men could have endured. Yet except during his 
visit to England in 1363, he intermitted none of his ordinary 
pulpit labors during the war, nor did he manifest any less than 
hi-s usual fervor and eloquence in them. 

It must be acknowledged, however, that his extraordinary 
exertions, during the first two years of the war, together with 
the editorial charge of the Independent, and his duties as 
preacher and pastor, had, for once, sapped his strength, and 
were making inroads upon a constitution so vigorous as pre- 
viously to require no seasons of relaxatioa and rest. He found 
himself compelled to take a voyage to England, and endeavor 
thus to restore his wasted strength, and fit himself the better 
for the arduous toils yet to come. It was his intention, as he 
went solely for the restoration of his health, not to preach or 
speak in public during his absence, and to tliis resolution he 
adhered during his first visit to England and while on the Con- 
tinent. But, on his return to England, in October, 18G3, he 



REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 601 

found that our friends there required encouragement, and tliat 
there was a necessity for disabusing the minds of the English 
people of the errors and falsehoods, which had been widely pro- 
pagated among them by the emissaries of the South. He spoke 
at Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and London, to 
audiences of many thousands, and though, in Manchester and 
Liverpool, the friends of the rebellion had assembled mobs to 
prevent his speaking, and had attemped to accomplish this, not 
only by noise, but by threats of personal violence, he succeeded, 
by dint of fearlessness, good humor, and the power of his voice, 
in calming the tumult and making himself heard on all the 
points of the controversy between the two great parties at 
home, as well as on the difficulties between the United States 
and European nations. These addresses were of great service in 
strengthening the hearts of our friends in England, in diffusing 
correct and much needed information in regard to the real 
issues at stake, and in encouraging the true men at home. It 
was a noble service, nobly rendered. 

After his return, Mr. Beecher entered with renewed zeal 
upon the work of aiding our soldiers, providing for the 
wounded and their families, and upholding the administration, 
during the trying period of the great battle year, 186-i. After 
the close of the war, he went to Charleston, and assisted in 
raising the old flag upon Sumter, making an eloquent address 
on the occasion. 

Mr. Beecher's disposition, though brave, as becomes his 
Lneage, is yet greatly inclined to mercy. When the war was 
over, he was in favor of the formula of Mr. Greeley, " Uni- 
versal Amnesty and Universal Suffrage," and was so much 
inclined to forgive the rebels, whom he supposed to be gener- 
ally penitent, that he would have been disposed to accept the 
universal amnesty without the suffrage, for the present, believ- 



602 MEN OF OUE DAY. 

ing that this would come by and by. He had full confidence, 
too, in Mr. Johnson's good faith and real desire for the recon- 
struction of the rebellious States, on righteous and just prin« 
ciples. For a while, these views alienated from him some of 
those who had long been his warmest friends, and caused those 
who had been his bitter enemies, to praise him, and to ofler 
him political positions. This and the course of events soon 
opened his eyes to the false position in which the promptings 
of his generous nature had placed him. It is needless to say, 
that he had never, for an instant, faltered in his devotion to 
the great principles for which he and his friends had so Jong 
contended. It was only a question of the propriety of certain 
measures, and he has long since seen his mistake, and taken 
his place with the earnest friends of reconstruction on the 
principles laid down by Congress. 

"We conclude, then, this sketch of Mr. Beecher, with the 
earnest hope that a life, so full of usefulness, so active in every 
good caiuse, so earnest in the promotion of all patriotic meas- 
Tires, may be long protracted, and that a generation yet to come 
may be blessed by his ministrations. 



HON. ANDREW GREGG CURTIN, 

EX-GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA. 




<, MONG the loyal governors of the Northern States du- 
13' ring the rebellion, none were placed in circumstancea 
Q requiring greater watchfulness, or more prompt and de- 
^ cisive action, than the patriotic Governor of Pennsylva- 
nia, and none fulfilled their high trust with greater fidelity and 
loyalty. 

Andrew Gregg Curtin was the son of Rowland Curtin, 
and was'boru in Bellefonte, Centre county, Pennsylvania, April 
2d, 1817. The inhabitants of his native county were mostly 
engaged in the manufacture of iron, though agriculture was by 
no means neglected there. The elder Curtin was a noted iron 
manufacturer for forty years, in Centre county, where he accu- 
mulated a large estate, and left his children an ample fortune. 
The mother of Governor Curtin was a daughter of Andrew 
Gregg, of British war fame, a Representative in Congress and 
United States Senate from 1807 to 1813, and one of the sup- 
porters of Jefferson and Madison. 

Young Curtin was educated in Milton, Northumberland 

county, where he was one of the pupils at the academy of the 

Rev. J. Kirkpatrick. After obtaining a good rudimental 

education he was placed in the law office and law school of 

Judge Reed, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. At this time tlie school 

603 



604: MEN OP OUR DAT. 

formed a portion of Dickinson college, and Judge Eeed was 
esteemed the best lawyer in Pennsylvania. 

During the year 1839, Andrew G. Curtin was admitted to 
the bar, and began his profession in Bellefoute. He was very 
successful, and transacted a large and varied practice in the 
courts of the neighboring counties. Like most lawyers, he began 
to take a great interest in politics, and attached himself to the 
Whig party of the period. He was activeh^ engaged, during 
1840, in promoting the election of General Harrison as Presi- 
dent of the United States ; and in 1844 stumped the *State in 
support of Henry Clay — being always successful in collecting 
an audience on the shortest notice. 

Mr. Curtin was placed on the electoral ticket for 1848, and 
again travelled through his native State, advocating the election 
of General Zachary Taylor. In 1852, he supported the nomi- 
nation of General Scott, was placed on the electoral ticket, and 
worked arduously in his behalf. Indeed, in all his political ac- 
tions, he took the side of what were known as the Pennsylva- 
nia Whigs. 

During the year 1854, Mr. Curtin was very earnestly re- 
quested by the voters of the centre of Pennsylvania to accept 
the nomination for Governor of the State, but refused, receiv- 
ing instead, the chairmanship of the State Central Committee. 
He was afterward appointed, by Governor Pollock, State Secre- 
tary of the Commonwealth. 

Secretary Curtin devoted a great deal of his attention to 
common schools, and to the question of public improvements. 
After his retirement from the State secretaryship, he again de- 
voted himself to the practice of the law, and was very active in 
the extension of railroad facilities through the centre of the 
State. 

Mr. Curtin accepted the nomination for Governor of the 



• HON. ANDREW GREGG CURTIN. 605 

State of Peiuisylvaiiia iii 1S60; was elected in October of tliat 
year, ami Avas i'ormally inaugurated January 15th, 18G1. The 
country was then becoming distracted by the first movements 
of the rebellion, and Governor Curtin soon began to make pre- 
parations to support the United States Government. On April 
9th, he sent a message to the State Legislature, recommending 
that measures be immediately adopted to remedy the defects in 
the militia system of the State. The legislative committee re- 
ported a bill for that purpose, and three days after it became a 
law. 

The excitement attending the fall of Sumter requiring speedy 
legislative action, the recently adjourned Legislature was agaiu 
convened, on April 30th, under Governor Curtin's proclamation 
of April 20th. Volunteers were called for by the United 
States Government, and through Governor Curtin's energy, the 
first regiment that entered the national capital, for its defence, 
was the 25th Pennsylvania volunteers, Colonel Cake. The 
Legislature provided for the raising of a reserve corps, and 
when the three years' volunteers were called for, Pennsylvania 
was ready to send a full division at once into the field. This 
Pennsylvania Reserve Corps did great honor to the State and 
extraordinary service to the nation. General Reynolds, who fell 
on the first day at Gettysburg, was one of its commanders, and 
Major-General Meade, afterward commander of the Army of 
the Potomac, another. 

The territory of Pennsylvania was threatened, and its border 
invaded, in September, 1862, before the battle of Antietam ; but 
the movements of the rebels, in June and July, 1863, when sev- 
eral of its towns were plundered and burned, its capital and its 
chief city threatened, and one the bloodiest battles of the war 
fought, for three days, in one its towns, created great alarm 
among its inhabitants, and it required all Governor Curtin's 



606 MEN OP OUR DAY. 

self-possession, calmness, and executive ability, to re-assure hia 
people and organize them for resistance to the invaders. 

His executive powers were again called into exercise in the 
summer of 1864, when the south-eastern part of the State was 
invaded again by the rebels, and great destruction of property 
resulted. Governor Curtin was re-elected in 1863, and con- 
tinued in of&ce till January, 1867. Since his retirement, he 
has been actively engaged in business, but during the political 
campaign of 1867-1868, he did good service for the Eepublican 
party as a speaker, in New York, New Hampshire and Connec- 
ticut. He was strongly pressed as a candidate for the vice-presi- 
dency at the Chicago Convention, in May, 1868, but the current 
being evidently in favor of Mr. Colfax, he caused his name to 
be withdrawn. 



HON. GERRIT SMITH. 




ERE we called upon to point out a man whose whole 

course of life had been controlled, both in public and 

private, by the conscientious desire to obey the great 

law of love, " whatsoever things ye would that men 

should do unto you, do ye even so unto them," we should have 

no hesitation in selecting Gerrit Smith as that man. 

He may have erred in judgment at times ; his measures for 

accomplishing good may have failed, in some instances, either 

from their own imperfection, or the weakness, stupidity or un- 

worthiness of those whom he has sought to benefit ; he may, in 

his anxieties to benefit his fellow-man, have been led into 

erroneous and dangerous views of the plans, purposes, and 

revelation of Him, whom yet, in his heart of hearts, we believe 

he reverently worships; but of his earnest desire to do his 

whole duty to his fellow-man there can be no question. 

Gerrit Smith was born in Utica, New York, March 6th, 

1797. His father, Hon. Peter Smith, was known in the early 

part of the present century as one of the largest land-holders in 

the United States. At his death his great fortune was divided 

mainly between his two sons, Peter Sken Smith and Gerrit 

Smith, the former receiving the larger share of the personal, 

and the latter the greater part of the real estate. 

Gerrit Smith was graduated at Hamilton college, Clinton, 

C07 



608 MEN" OF OUR DAY. 

New York, in 1818. He never entered himself as a student of 
law, but was admitted to practice in the State and Federal 
courts of New York in 1853, and has participated in several 
important trials. 

nis philanthropic disposition led him at an early age to take 
an active part in the benevolent enterprises of the day. In 
1825, he connected himself with the American Colonization 
Society, in the hope that it would facilitate the emancipation 
of the slaves. He contributed largely to its funds, but finally 
becoming satisfied that it was not the intention of its founders 
or directors to promote general emancipation, he withdrew 
from it in 1835, and has been ever since identified, heart and 
soul, with the voting portion of the anti-slavery party. 

Gifted with a simple and natural eloquence, very effective 
with the masses, he has plead the cause of the slave for thirty 
years past with great earnestness, and a confiding faith in the 
eventual triumph of the principles of emancipation ; and that 
his faith might not be unsustained by works, he has given, 
with a princely liberality, to every effort for the promotion of 
the abolition of slavery. 

It is a characteristic of Mr. Smith's mind that he must push 
his views of philanthropy to their ultimate logical conclusions, 
and he cannot rest in any thing short of these. Thus holding 
that slavery was wrong, and that no man had a right to enjoy 
the rewards of the enforced labor of another, he came to the 
farther conclusion, that it was wrong to purchase or use any 
thing produced by the labor of the slave, and hence he refused 
to wear o-r use any article made of cotton, unless he could be 
satisfied that it was free labor cotton, any sugar except that 
produced by free labor, any rice except that grown in India or 
China. 

But his philanthropy was not confined to the slave; the 



HON. QERRIT SMITH. 609 

victim of intemperance was equally an object of liis sympathy 
and commiseration, and his own eloquence, and iiis means, were 
freely expended in the endeavor to restrain or prohibit the sale 
of intoxicating drinks. He was strongly opposed to the use of 
tobacco, and aided in the publication and circulation of tracts 
to dissuade people from its use. lie believed woman oppressed 
by the laws, and exerted himself to have them changed so as 
to better her condition. He aided in prison reformation and 
the establishment of juvenile reformatories ; and when the news 
of the attempts to fasten slavery upon Kansas came to his ears, 
though in general a peace- man and non-resistant, he contrilnited 
largely for the purchase of Sharp's rifles, and for the outfit 
and forwarding of large bodies of sturdy northern settlers to 
that territory. Though by inheritance and purchase from his 
fellow-heirs, one of the largest land-holders in the United 
States, he had convinced himself of the wrongfulness of land 
monopoly, and practically illustrated his views, by distributing 
two hundred thousand acres of land, partly among institutions 
of learning, but mostly among the poor white and black men, 
to wdiom he allotted, in tracts of about fifty acres, one hundred 
and twenty thousand acres of land, accompanying the deed in 
many instances with a sum of money sufficient to enable them 
to erect a cabin, and procure a little stock. 

Some of his colonists did well; but many, a majority, we 
fear, proved unworthy of his kindness, and after receiving his 
bounty, abandoned their lands, and reviled him because he 
would not support them in idleness. 

It was in connection with these gifts- of land, that he first 
became acquainted with John Brown, afterward of Kansas. 
Mr. Brown was of great service to him in the care and instruc- 
tion of his colored colonists, and some of them, under his 

influence, did well. In the Kansas troubles, Mr. Smith put 
39 



610 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

raouej into Brown's hands frequently, to distribute among tlie 
poor in that territory. Brown visited him a few months before 
his Harper's Ferry raid, but did not communicate to him his 
plans. 

In 1852, Mr. bx.iith was elected to Congress from the twenty- 
second Congressional district of New York, but resigned at the 
close of the first or long session, on account of the pressure of 
his private affairs, and his extreme disrelish for public life. 
After the John Brown raid, in 1859, an attempt was made by 
Virginians, and other pro-slavery leaders, to identify him and 
other prominent anti-slavery men at the North with the move- 
ment, and to demonstrate that it was an extensive conspiracy 
against the South. The charge was absolutely false ; but Mr. 
Smith being at the time in very feeble health, and being 
excited by the virulent attacks made upon him, became for a 
short time insane. He speedily, however, recovered his reason, 
with the improvement of his general health. In 1861, he 
entered with great spirit and patriotism into the efforts for 
raising regiments and sustaining the Government in a vigorous 
prosecution of the war. He addressed a number of large 
gatherings on this subject, and, as usual, gave liberally for it. 

The war over, he inclined to the policy of extreme mercy to 
the South, and in May, 1867, at the request of one of Mr. 
Jefferson Davis's counsel, became one of the signers of his bail- 
bond, qualifying in the sum of five thousand dollars for his 
appearance. His course in the matter, like that of Mr. Greeley, 
occasioned considerable animadversion, but both gentlervi^ 1 
defended themselves by published letters, to the best of their 
ability. 

For several years past, Mr. Smith has advocated, both by 
published speeches, and public essays and appeals, a larger 
liberty of opinion, and freedom from what he believed the 



HON. GERRIT SMITH. 611 

bondage of sect. These views, wbicli at first took only tlio 
form of a protest against denominationalism, have gradually, 
from his habit of pushing his speculations to their ultimate 
conclusions, developed into a modified deism, rejecting many 
of the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, and assailing, 
with great vehemence, the Christian church. In this crusade 
ho has made very few converts, and in common witli most of ' 
his friends, we believe his errors to be rather of the head than 
the heart. 

Under his abundant, almost lavish giving, Mr. Smith's 
princely estate has diminished till he is now comparatively poor. 
Yet his generous nature remains, and we doubt not he sufi'ers 
more than the applicant for his bounty, when he is obliged to 
deny or diminish the amount of his beneficence. 

Mr. Smith published a volume of his " Speeches in Congress," 
m 1856; a volume entitled "Sermons and Speeches by Gerrit 
Smith," in 1861 ; and numberless pamphlets and broad sheets. 
His latest pamphlets are, " The Theologies," 1866 ; " Nature's 
Theology," 1867 ; and " a Letter from Gerrit Smith to Albert 
Barnes " 1868. 



THEODORE TILTON, 



EDITOR OF THE INDEPENDENT. 



T MONG the journalists of the nation, several of whom we 

,, L^ have sketched in this volume, there is none who haa 

1 1 

^GVQ risen earlier or more rapidly, to the chief editorship 
of a leading and influential paper, or given indications 
in early manhood of greater genius and intellectual grasp, than 
the still youthfal editor of the Independent. 

Theodore Tilton was born in New York city, October 2, 
1835. He derives his mental and social characteristics in a 
great degree from his mother, a woman largely endowed with 
intellectual gifts. His early edifcation was received at the pub- 
lic schools of New York cit}^, and he graduated at the Free 
Academy, now the college of the city of New York, long before 
he was twenty years of age. He had been early trained to 
sympathy with the abolitionists, who, in his childhood, were 
persecuted and abused by the pro-slavery leaders in both politi- 
cal parties ; and the fiery eloquence of Dr. Cheevcr, the leader, 
for many years, of the religious anti-slavery party in New 
York, had made a deep impression on the pale, thoughtful, 
freedom-loving lad. He longed to share in their trials and 
triumphs, and Avhile yet a child, ranged himself with them, to 
take his share of the contempt, insult, and obloquy which greeted 

them on all occasions, and his share also of the coming glory 
612 



THEODORE TILTON. G13 

fiiiJ lionor, wliicli even bis boyish vision foresaw for tliem in 
the speedy future. 

Wlint was at first, perhaps, only tlie sympathy of a sensitive 
boy, abhorring oppression, injustice, and wrong, soon came to be 
one of the deepest convictions of his nature ; and it is not sur- 
prising that though his friends were desirous that lie should 
qualify himself to enter the ministry in the Congregational 
churcli, ho should have preferred the career of a joui-nalist. 

He connected himself early with the oSTew York Independent, 
a religious and political paper, anti-slavery and radical repub- 
lican in its character, and addressing even at that time a 
very large number of intelligent readers. Eev. Dr. Leavitt was 
then its managing editor, and such men as Drs. K. S. Storrs, jr., 
J. r. Thompson, and George B. Cheever, w^erc the members of 
its editorial committee. Mr. Tilton's first duties were reporto- 
rial, with occasional notes in the local column ; but he soon dis- 
played so much ability and tact as to become a valuable assist- 
ant to Dr. Leavitt in the management, and the preparation of 
editorial notes and paragraphs for the paper. 

After two or three years of this service, a change occurred in 
the control of the paper, and the editorship was transferred to 
Mr. Beecher, Dr. Leavitt being still, ho-\vever, office editor. 
Mr. Beecher knew and appreciated his young friend Tilton, and 
gave him a more prominent position on the paper, and when, in 
1863, Mr. Beecher found it necessary to make a voyage to 
Europe for his health, Mr. Tilton became de facto editor in chief, 
and has since retained the position, his name being placed at 
the head of the paper, a year or two later. 

Under his management, the Independent has been noted for 
the extraordinary vigor and power of its editorials, some of 
which have hardly been surpassed, in the way of newspaper 
writing, during the present century. They bear marks of 



614 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

being flung oflf at a white heat, and while sometimes lacking a 
little in prudence and caution, are always attractive and reada- 
ble. 

Mr. Tilton has given evidence of the possession of the poetic 
faculty, both in his prose and in his poetry. His best poems 
are those which he has most carefully elaborated, touching and 
retouching them as an artist does his favorite picture. Among 
those of the greatest merit are "The Bell Eoland," "The 
Lotus," " The Victory of Life," " The Fellowship of Suffering," 
and " The Captain's Wife." He collected most of his lyrics in a 
pretty volume in 18G7, bat included in it some verses which 
are not poetry, in its highest sense. 

For two or three years past, Mr. Tilton has been numbered 
among the corps of lyceum lecturers, and has achieved a great 
success. He is to-day perhaps foremost in reputation among 
the younger class of speakers. His electric energy, playful 
fancy, ready wit, and fiery eloquence, make him very popular 
with qitidiences everywhere, and he has more engagements 
oft'ered him than he can accept. Without the slightest wish or 
attempt on his part to imitate Mr. Beecher, there is a very 
considerable similarity in the manner in which the two men 
control and magnetize an audience. With both there is an 
alternation of the humor which provokes a smile, and the pathos 
which causes the tears to moisten the eyes ; both draw their 
illustrations mainly from nature, and both possess that power 
of word-painting which enables them to make their hearers see 
what they describe. The following passages from his speech at 
the New England Society's dinner, December 22, 1865, will 
give a very good idea of his humor, the delicacy of his conceits, 
and his descriptive power. He was at this time but thirty 
years of age, and looked at least six years younger. 

The ibllowing toast was given : — 



THEODORE TILTON. 615 

" Woma7i — The strong staff and beautiful i-od which sustained 
and comforted our forefathers during every step of the Pilgrims' 
Progress." 

Mr. Tilton being called upon to respond, spoke as follows : — 

■ Gentlemen : it is somewhat to a modest man's embarrassment, 
on rising to this toast, to know that it lias already l)een twice 
partially spoken to this evening — first by my friend Senator 
Lane, from Indiana, and just now, most eloquently, by the 
mayor-elect of New York, who could not utter a better word in 
his own praise, than to tell us that he married a Massachusetts 
wife. [Applause.] In choosing the most proper spot on this 
platform as the stand-point for such remarks as are appropriate 
to such a toast, my first impulse was to go to the other end of' 
the table — for hereafter, Mr. Chairman, when you are in want 
of a man to speak for woman, remember that Hamlet said, 
'Bring me the recorder P [Laughter.] But, on the other hand, 
here, at this end, a prior claim was put in from th.e State of Indi- 
ana, whose venerable Senator has expressed himself disappointed 
at finding no women present. So, as my toast introduces that 
sex, I feel bound to stand at the Senator's end of the room, not, 
however, too near the Senator's chair, for it may be dangerous 
to take woman too near that ' good-looking man.' [Laughter.] 
Therefore, gentlemen, I stand between these two chairs — the 
army on my right (General Hancock), the navy on my left 
(Admiral Sarragut), and hold over their heads the name 
that conquered both, — woman ! [Applause.] The chairman 
has pictured a vice-admiral tied a little while to a mast: 
but it is the spirit of my sentiment to give you a vice-admi- 
ral tied life-long to a master. [Applause.] In the absence 
of woman, therefore, from this gilded feast, I summon her to 
your golden remembrance. You must not forget, Mr. President, 
in eulogizing the early men of New England, who are yon/r 
clients to-night, that it was only through the help of the early 
women of New England, who are mine, that your boasted heroes 
could ever have earned their title of the Pilgrim Fathers. 
[Great laughter.] A health, therefore, to the women in the 



616 MEN OF OUK DAY. 

cabin of the May-Flower ! A cluster of may-flowers them- 
selves, transplanted from summer in the old -world to winter in 
the new ! Counting over those matrons and maidens, they 
number, all told, just eighteen. Their names are now written 
among the heroines of history ! For as over the ashes of 
(^y'ornelia stood the epitaph, ' The Mother of the Gracchi,' so over 
these women of that Pilgrimage wo write as pi-oudly ' The 
Mothers of the Republic' [Applause.] There was good 
Mistress Bradford, whose feet were not allowed of God to kiss 
Plymouth Rock, and who, like Moses, came only near enough 
to see, but not to enter the promised land. She was washed 
overboard from the deck — and to this day the sea is her 
grave, and Cape Cod her monument ! [Applause.] There was 
Mistress Carver, wife of the first governor, who, when her 
husband fell under the stroke of sudden death, followed him at 
first with heroic grief to the grave, and then, a fortnight after, 
followed him with heroic joy up into heaven ! [Applause.] 
There was Mistress AVhite — the mother of the first child born 
to the jSTew England Pilgrims on this continent. And it was 
a good omen, sir, that this historic babe Avas brought into 
the world on board the May-Flower, between the time of 
the casting of the anchor, and the landing of the passengers — a 
kind of amphibious prophecy that the new-born nation was to 
have a birthright inheritance over the sea and over the land- 
[Great applause.] There, also, was Rose Standish — whose 
name is a perpetual June fragrance, to mellow §nd sweeten 
those December winds. And, there, too, was Mrs. Winslow, 
whose name is even more than a fragrance ; it is a taste ; for, as 
the adveitisem.ents say, ' children cry for it ;' it is a soothing 
synq: [Great laughter.] Then, after the first vessel, with 
these women, came other vessels, Avith other women — loving 
hearts, drawn from the olden land by those silken threads 
which after ward harden into golden chains. For instance. 
Governor Bradford, a lonesome widower, went down to the sea- 
beach, and, facing the waves, tossed a love letter over the wide 
ocean into the lap of Alice Southworth in Old England, who 
caught it up, and read it, and said, ' Yes, I will go.' And she 



THEODORE TILTON. 617 

went! And it was said, that tlio Lcovcrnor at liis second wed- 
ding- married his first love I Which, according to the new 
tlieolog}^, furnishes the providential reason why the first Mrs. 
Bradford fell overboard ! [Great laughter.] Now, gentlenien, 
as you sit to-night in this elegant hall, think of the houses 
in which the May-Flower men and women lived in that first 
winter ! 

"Think of a cabin in the wilderness — where winds whistled 
— where wolves howled — where Indians yelled ! And yet 
within that log-house, burning like a lamp, was the pure flame 
of Christian faith, love, patience, fortitude, heroism ! As the 
Star of the East rested over the rude manger where Christ lay, 
so — speaking not irreverently — there rested over the roofs of 
the pilgrims a Star of the West — the Star of Empire; and to- 
da}^, that Empire is the proudest in the world! [Ap])lause] 
And if Ave could summo,n up from their graves, and bring 
hither to-night that olden company of long-mouldered men, and 
the}^ could sit with us at this feast, in their mortal flesh, and 
with their stately presence, the whole world would make a 
pilgrimage to see those pilgrims ! [Applause.] IIow quaint 
their attire I How grotesque their names ! How we treasure 
every relic of their day and generation ! And of all the heir- 
looms of the earlier times in Yankee-land, what household 
memorial is clustered around about with more sacred and 
touching associations than the spinning-wheel! The indus- 
trious mother sat by it, doing her work Avhile she instructed 
her children! The blushing daughter plied it diligently, while 
her sweetheart had a chair very close by I And you remember, 
too, another person who used it more than all the rest — that 
]iL'Culiar kind of maiden, well along in life, who, Avhile she spun 
her 3^arn into one 'blue stocking,' spun herself into another. 
[Laughter.] But perhaps my toast forbids me to touch upon 
this well-known class of Yankee women — restricting me, rather, 
to such Avomen as ^ comfortecV the Pilgrims." [Laughter.] 

A friend of Mr. Til ton, thus describes his personal appear- 
ance. The portraiture is to the life : — 



618 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

"In person, he is tall and commanding, and when excited in 
debate, majestic. His head is large, and thickly covered with 
a heavy sheaf of soft brown hair, which hangs over his coat 
collar, giving him a spiritualistic look. His face, free of mns 
tache and whiskers, is closely shaved and pale, though of a 
clear and healthy tone. The most casual observer will see in 
it indications of thought and feeling. It is such a face as a 
child can trust and caress. His eyes are blue, large and mag- 
netic, lighting up pleasantly in conversation; but they are 
usually dull in repose, hence the photographer seldom does him 
justice." 



HON. EZRA CORNELL. 




MONGr the names of the great benefactors of education, 
that of Ezra Cornell must ahvays occupy a place in 
the front rank. "With one exception, no man, living or 
dead, has contributed so largely to the diffusion of know 
ledge among men, as this plain, practical business man. Though 
deprived of the advantages of collegiate training in early life, 
he has sought to give to all classes the boon of a higher educa- 
tion ; and he has done this so wisely and well, that numberless 
generations to come will rise up and bless him for it. 

Ezra Cornell was born at Westchester Landing, "West 
Chester county. New York, January 11th, 1807. His parents 
were members of the Society of Friends. His father was by 
trade a potter, and carried on the business extensively, at one 
time, in Tarry town, afterward at English Neighborhood, New 
Jersey. Young Cornell made himself useful in his father's shop 
in attending to customers and delivering ware. 

In 1819, his father removed to De Kuyter, ]\[adison county, 
New York, where he again established a pottery, and with the 
assistance of Ezra and a younger sou conducted a farm. 

The advantages for early scholastic training which Mr. Cor- 
nell enjoyed were few, yet, such as they were, he eagerly 
availed himself of them. At De Ruyter, his flither taught a 

district school during the winter terms, which he attended. 

619 



fi20 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

Tlie last year of his " schooling," being then about seventeen 
years of age, he obtained, as it were, by purchase, he and his 
brother agreeing to clear four acres of wood-land in time to 
plant corn in the following spring. This was done, and an ex- 
cellent crop of corn secured, without the aid of a day's labor 
from other sources. Notwithstanding his limited facilities for 
tuition, Ezra made considerable advancement in the various 
branches of common-school learning, and was even advised to 
teach on his own account. This advice he did not see fit to fol- 
low, but turned his attention to farming. In 1825, an incident 
occurred which called out his great natural mechanical ability. 
His father hired a carpenter to build a shop, and E:':r i olMnincd 
permission to assist in preparing the frame. While the woik 
was in progress, he pointed out to the carpenter an error in the 
laying out of one of the corner posts, and at the risk of a flog- 
ging, convinced him of his mistake. Soon afterward his fa- 
ther requested him to build a dwelling-house, and though he 
had never seen a book on architecture, taking the house of a 
neighbor as his model, he went bravely at it, and after weeks 
of persevering effort, although annoyed and thwarted by of- 
ficious and meddlesome persons, who were fearful that he would 
succeed, yet he finally triumphed in the construction of a sub- 
stantial and comfortable house, into which his father removed. 
The execution of this task obtained for him the admiration of 
his neighbors, and a good knowledge of carpentry. In 1826, 
we find the elder son leaving his father's house to seek his for- 
tune among strangers. During the next year he found employ- 
ment at Homer, Cortland county, in building wool-carding ma- 
chines. In the spring of 1828, he went to Ithaca, and engaged 
witli a Mr. Eddy to work in the machine shop of his cotton 
factory one yeaj', at eight dollars per month and his board. Ilis 
services were evidently appreciated, as he says himself: "I had 



HON. EZRA CORNELL. 621 

worked six montLs on tins contract, when Mr. Eddy sui'j rised 
me one morning by saying to nic that he thought I was not 
getting wages enough, and that he had made up his mind to pay 
me twelve dollars per month the balance of the year. I 
thanked him and contumed my labors. At the end of the year, 
I had credit for six months, at eight dollars per month, and 
seven months, at twelve dollars per month, having gained one 
month during the year by overwork. Twelve hours were cre- 
dited as a da3''s work, and I have found no day since that time, 
■which has not demanded twelve hours' work from me." 

In 1829, the success gained by him in repairing a flouring- 
mill at Fall Creek, Ithaca, led to his effecting an engagement 
with the proprietor of the mill to take charge of it, at four 
hundred dollars a year. He remained in this position ten years, 
during which period he built a new flouriug-mill, containing 
eight runs of stones. This latter mill he worked two years, 
turning out four hundred barrels of flour per day, during the 
fall or flouring season, and employing only one miller. He had 
so admirabl}^ adjusted the mechanism of this mill, that manual 
labor was only required to take the flour from the mill. 

The term of his engagement having expired, he next engaged 
in business of an agricultural nature, conducting it partly in 
Maine, and partly in Georgia. His brother was associated in 
this business. Their plan was to spend the summer in Maine, 
and the winter in Georgia. These operations led to an acquaint- 
ance which terminated in his becoming interested in rendering 
available the magnetic telegraph, for the purpose of communica- 
tion between distant places. 

Mr. Cornell's history, in connection with the early introduc- 
tion of telegraphing, is highly interesting. During the winter 
of 1842 and 1843, while in Georgia, he conceived a plan for em- 
ploying the State prison convicts of Georgia in the manufacture 



622 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

of agricultural implements ; and after thoroughly examining its 
feasibilit}', Avent to Maine for the purpose of settling some un- 
finished business, preparatory to entering upon the execution of 
his project. While in Maine, he called upon Mr. F. O. J. Smith, 
then editor of the Portland " Farmer.''^ He was informed by 
Mr. Smith, that Congress had appropriated thirty thousand dol- 
lars toward building a telegraph, under the direction of Profes- 
sor Morse, between Baltimore and "Washington, and that he 
(Smith) had taken the contract to lay the pipe in which the tel- 
egraphic cable was to be enclosed, and he was to receive one 
hundred dollars a mile for the work. Mr. Smith also informed 
Mr. Cornell that, after a careful examination, he had found that 
he would lose money by the job, and, at the same time, showed 
him a piece of the pipe, and explained the manner of its con- 
struction, the depth to which it was to be laid, and the difficul- 
ties which he expected to encounter in carrying out the design. 
Mr. Cornell, at this same interview, after the brief explanation 
which Mr. Smith had given, told him that, in his opinion, the 
pipe could be laid by machinery at a much less expense than 
one hundred dollars a mile, and it would be, in the main, a 
profitable operation. At the same time, he sketched on paper 
the plan of a machine which he thought practicable. This led 
to the engagement of Mr. Cornell by Mr. Smith, to make such 
a machine. And he immediately went to work and made 
patterns for its construction. While the machine was being 
made, Mr. Cornell went to Augusta, Maine, and settled up his 
business, and then returned to Portland and completed the 
pipe machine. Professor Morse was notified, by Mr. Smith, in 
regard to the machine, and went to Portland to see it tried. 
The trial proved a success. Mr. Cornell was employed to take 
charge of laying the pipe. Under his hands the work advanced 
rapidly, and he had laid ten miles or more of the pipo, whet) 



HON. EZRA CORNELL. 628 

Professor Morse discovered that his insulation was so imper- 
fect that the telegraph would not operate, lie did not, how- 
ever, stop the work until he had received orders, which orders 
came in the following singular manner. When the evening 
train came out from Baltimore, Professor Morse was observed 
to step from the car ; he walked up' to Mr. Cornell and took 
him aside, and said, " Mr. Cornell, cannot you contrive to stop 
the work for a few days without its being known that it is done 
on purpose ? If it is known that I ordered the stoppage, the 
papers will find it out, and have all kinds of stories about it." 
Mr. Cornell saw the condition of ailairs with his usual quick- 
ness of discernment, and told the professor that he would make 
it all right. So he ordered the drivers to start the team of 
eight mules, which set the machine in motion, and, while driv- 
ing along at a lively pace, in order to reach the Eelay House, 
a distance of about twenty rods, before it was time to " turn 
out," managed to tilt the machine so as to catch it under the 
point of a projecting rock. This apparent accident so damaged 
the machine as to render it useless. The professor retired in a 
state of perfect contentment, and the Baltimore papers, on the 
following morning, had an interesting subject for a paragraph. 
The work thus being suspended of necessity, Professor Morse 
convened a grand council at the Eelay House, composed of 
himself. Professor Gale, Dr. Fisher, Mr. Yaile, and P. 0. J. 
Smith, the persons especially concerned in the undertaking. 
After discussing the matter, they determined upon further 
efforts for perfecting the insulation. These failed, and orders 
were given to remove every thing to Washington. Up to this 
time. Professor Morse and his assistants had expended twenty- 
two thousand dollars, and all in vain. Measures were taken to 
reduce the expenses, and Mr. Cornell was appointed assistant 
superintendent, and took entire charge of the undertaking. He 



624 i[EX OF OUR DAY. 

now altered the design, substituting poles for the pipe. This 
may be regarded as the commencement of " air lines" of tele- 
graph. He commenced the erection of the line between Balti- 
more and "Washington on poles, and had it in successful 
operation in time to report the proceedings of the Conventions 
which nominated Henry Clay and James K. Polk for the presi- 
dency. 

Although the practicability of the telegraph had been so 
thoroughly tested, it did not become at once popular. A short 
line was erected in New York city in the spring of 1845, having 
its lower ofiice at 112 Broadway, and its upper office near 
Niblo's. The resources of the company had been entirely ex- 
hausted, so that they were unable to pay Mr. Cornell for his 
services, and he was directed to charge visitors twentj'-five cents 
for admission, so as to raise the funds requisite to defray ex- 
penses. Yet sufficient interest Avas not shov/n by the communi- 
ty even to support Air. Cornell and his assistant. Even the New 
York press were opposed to the telegraphic project. The pro- 
prietor of the " Neio York ITerald,'^ when called upon by Mr. 
Cornel], and requested to say a good word in his favor, emphati- 
cally refused, stating distinctly, that it would be greatly to his 
disadvantage should the telegraph succeed. Stranger still is it, 
that many of those very men, who would be expected to be en- 
tirely in favor of the undertaking, viz., men of ?ci<MTtific ]^ur- 
suits, stood aloof, and declined to indorse it. In order to \)\xt up 
the line in the most economical manner, Mr. Cornell desired to 
attach the wires to the city buildings which lined its course. 
Many house-owners objected, alleging that it would invalidate 
their insurance policies by increasing the risk of their buildings 
being struck by lightning. Mr. Cornell cited the theory of the 
lightning-rod, as demonstrated by Franklin, and showed that the 
telegraphic wire would add safety to their buildings. ' Some 



HON. EZRA CORNELL. 625 

persous still refused, but informed him that could ho procure a 
certificate from Professor Renwick, then connected with Colum- 
bia college, to the effect that the wires would not increase the 
risk of their buildings, they would allow him to attach his 
wires. Mr. Cornell thought the obtaining of such a certificate 
a very easy matter, as certainly all scientific men were agreed 
upon the Franklin theory. He therefore posted off to Columbia 
college, saw the distinguished savan, stated his errand, and re- 
quested the certificate, saying it would be doing Professor Morse 
a great favor. 

To his utter consternation, the learned professor replied, " No, 
I cannot do that," alleging that " the wires would increase the 
risk of the buildings being struck by lightning." Mr. Cornell 
was obliged to go into an elaborate discussion of the Franklin 
theory of *,he lightning-rod, until the professor confessed him- 
self in error, and prepared the desired certificate, for which 
opinion he charged him twenty-five dollars. This certificate 
enabled Mr. Cornell to carry out his plans. 

In 184:5, he superintended the construction of a line of tele- 
graph from New York to Philadelphia. In 1846, he erected a 
line from New York to Albany in four months, and made five 
thousand dollars profit. In 181:7, he erected the line from Troy 
to Montreal, by contract, and was thirty thousand dollars the 
gainer by it, which he invested in western lands. lie also in- 
vested largely in telegraphic stock generally, other lines having 
been put up by other parties, being confident in the ultimate 
success of the magnetic telegraph. These investments, during 
the past ten years, have so increased in value as to make Mr. 
Cornell one of the " solid men" of the country. He certainly 
has deserved success, especially as he was foremost in carrying 
the telegraph through the gloomy days of its early career. 

As a gentleman of fortune, he has exhibited great liberality 
40 



626 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

by contributing largely toward many benevolent enterprises. 
In 1862 he was President of the State Agricultural Society ; 
and while in London that year he sent several soldiers from 
England to the United States, at his own expense, who joined 
our army on their arrival at New York. In 1862-3 he was 
elected a member of the New York Assembly, and in 186-1-5 
a member of the Senate. 

But the crowning glory of Mr. Cornell's career has been his 
munificent educational benefactions. He made Ithaca, New 
York, his home some years since, and discerning, in his quick 
way, the need of a public library there, he erected a building 
and gave an endowment of twenty-five thousand dollars, which 
he has since increased to fifty thousand, for the purchase of 
books, and the support of the necessary librarian, etc. 

At this time, two educational institutions had been started in 
central New York, intended to be State institutions, and with 
the promise of considerable endowments, if the State would 
lend its fostering aid in enabling them to get under way. These 
were the People's college at Ovid, New York, and the Agricul- 
tural college at Havana, New York. Both received large sums 
from the State, and a considerable amount from private benefac- 
tions, and were to divide between them the agricultural col- 
lege land grant of Congress, if they could comply with certain 
conditions. Both failed utterly, and rather from mismanage- 
ment than from lack of funds. 

Mr. Cornell had been an attentive observer of the course pur- 
sued by these two colleges, and had formed a plan for the erec- 
tion and endowment of a university which should not prove a 
failure. He was at this time a member of the State Senate, and 
having matured his plan, he asked for a charter for a univer- 
sity, to be located at Ithaca or its immediate vicinity, to be called 



HON. EZRA CORNELL. 627 

the Cornell uuiversitj, which he proposed to endow with the 
sum of five hundred thousand dollars. 

The charter was granted, but with one condition, which re- 
flects more credit on the shrewdness, than the honor of the 
lobby. It was that he should be permitted to make this muni- 
ficent endowment of a university, for the benefit of the youth 
of the State, if he would, over and above the five hundred 
thousand dollars, bestow an additional twenty-five thousand dol- 
lars upon Genesee college, at Lima, New York. Most men would 
have turned, Avith loathing, from a Legislature that could have 
the meanness to couple such a demand with their offer of a 
charter ; but Mr. Cornell was too deeply interested in the 
promotion of education to draw back, and he met their demand, 
paid the twenty-five thousand dollars, and received his charter. 

The next year, finding that both the colleges referred to had 
fiiiled to comply with the conditions on which they were to re- 
ceive the agricultural land grant, he asked it for his univer- 
sity on the same conditions, and received it. He had been, 
during all this time, busy in procuring the views and plans of 
the most eminent educators in regard to the organization of his 
university, and having increased his endowment to $760,000, 
he now took upon his own shoulders the location and sale of 
the agricultural land scrip, amounting to 990,000 acres, for the 
university, and with such success, that the ultimate endowment, 
from this source, will probably reach two millions of dollars or 
more. The complete and ample endowment of the university, 
in the speedy future, being thus placed beyond a contingency, 
he has superintended the erection of the needful buildings, for 
commencing the work of instruction, and in connection with 
the trustees of the university, elected Hon. Andrew White, an 
accomplished scholar, in the very prime of life, as president, and 
a larg^ corps of able professors and lecturers, and to this faculty 



628 MEN' OF OUR DAY. 

he has confided the task of settling the course of study, and the 
general principles on which education is to be imparted in the 
new university. The plan adopted, while by no means ignoring 
the classics, provides for optional courses of study, the require- 
ments in each being such as shall entitle the student, if he com- 
passes them, to a degree ; and they are so arranged, as to leave 
no loophole, for any student to obtain his degree, without severe 
and constant study, and an amount of attainment which, though 
more in the direction of his particular tastes, shall be fully 
equivalent to the demands of the best universities, either here 
or abroad. The university is to be amply supplied with books, 
apparatus, museums, and all the appliances of successful study, 
which are to be found in any institution in the countr}'-, and its 
special and post graduate courses are to comprise topics of 
study not hitherto connected" with any university in the country. 
A noble, grand, and praiseworthy benefaction is this; one 
whose blessed influences shall be felt in all the ages of the 
future, and shall exert an influence upon the nation, in en- 
larging its enterprise, elevating its purposes, and refining its 
intellectual aspirations. In Mr. Cornell's history, the young 
may see what industry and enterprise can accomplish ; the 
mechanic may learn the results of energy, and the possibility 
of the combination of a great success with an active benevo- 
lence ; and the rich may find that a wise beneficence brings in 
the largest revenue of happiness, and that it is better for a man 
of wealth to be his own executor, then to leave his fortune to 
be wasted by interminable lawsuits, and the bitter quarrels of 
heir^ who neither knew nor loved him. 



MATTHEW VASSAR. 




!IGH upon tlie list of our rich " self-made" men, wbo 
have distinguished themselves by the wise and beneficent 
use of the wealth secured by long and active enterprise, 
stands the honored name of Matthew Vassae. 
He was born on the 29th of April, 1792, in a humble home 
in East Dereham, Tuddenham Parish, County of Norfolk, Eng- 
land. He was of French descent ; the family name, spelled 
Yasseur, or Le Vasseur, being distinguished in French history. 
His great-grandfather emigrating from France to Norfolk, in 
England, engaged in agriculture and the wool culture, for which 
that country was always famous. His grandson, James, married 
Maria Bennett, the daughter of a neighboring farmer, and had 
four children, of whom the subject of our sketch was the 
youngest. James Vassar, who was a dissenter, of the Baptist 
persuasion, was one of that larg^ number who felt themselves 
obliged, by the extraordinary pressure brought to bear upon 
them by the established church, toward the close of the last 
century, to seek greater freedom of conscience in a foreign land. 
Accordingly, with his family, and his bachelor brother, Thomas 
Vassar, he set sail, in 1796, from London to New York ; dur- 
ing which voyage, the future founder of " Yassar College," 
little Matthew, was one day, in a gale, nearly swept off from 

the deck by a heavv sea. Arriving at New York, then a city 

C29 



630 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

of about fifty thousand souls, the emigrants found a temporary 
abode with an English brewer in the suburbs, while the father 
and his brother "prospected" in difl'erent places for a place 
wherein to settle. Early in the spring of 1797, the brothers 
found, in Dutchess county, New York, the long-desired spot 
which exactly suited their wants and tastes. And purchasing 
a farm of one hundred and eighty acres in the rich and beauti- 
ful valley of "Wappinger's Creek, about three miles east of the 
then village of Poughkeepsie, they commenced their American 
life, amid scenery which strongly resembled that of their be- 
loved Norfolk, and surrounded by a few English families, whose 
genial companionship served to keep up the chain of home as- 
sociations. Along the borders of their farm, the Vassars soon 
recognized the wild hop vine, plentifully draping the saplings, 
and suggesting to their English minds pleasant memories of 
good old home-brewed ale. But the barley, for malt, was yet 
lacking ; and the more the brothers thought over the matter, 
the greater seemed the necessity for securing some — for the 
Englishman's love of ale is as inbred as his respect for the 
British constitution. So, in the autumn, when the season's 
work was done, Thomas, the bachelor, went back to England 
for a supply of that grain, as well as other cereals, and some 
good sheep. He brought back some line seed-barley ; and in 
the summer of 1798, there appeared upon the Vassar farm the 
first field of barley ever raised in Dutchess county ; and in 
September, there was some of the real English home-brewed 
ale in the Yassar household. Its fame rapidly spread among 
the neighbors — American as well as English — and the family 
began to make it for sale ; Matthew and his mother going to 
Poughkeepsie with a wagon, in which was a barrel of ale, fresh 
eggs, and delicious butter — all of which found a ready and 
profitable market. So general, indeed, became the demand foi 



MATTHEW VASSAR. 631 

the beverage, that in 1801, James Vassar sold his rni-m and 
began the business of brewing in Poughkeepsie, which was in 
that year incorporated as a village. Purchasing here a lot. and 
building a brewery and home, Mr. Vassar very naturally wished 
and expected to make his sons assistants in his business ; and 
John Guy, the elder, did indeed prove a valuable and most 
efficient coadjutor. ]\[atthew, however, did not take kindly to 
the business; and was accordingly indentured by his father to a 
village tailor. This proved even more repulsive to his wishes 
than the brewing business ; and, on the morning which was to 
have seen him introduced to the service of his new master, the 
lad was missing! He had won his mother's consent to his 
wishes — had planned to leave home and seek his fortunes in 
the " wide, wide world" — and on this bright spring morning, in 
1806, with a little bundle of clothes in his hand, and accom- 
panied by his mother, he walked to New Hamburg ferry, eight 
miles from Poughkeepsie. There, with a few tears, his mother's 
earnest blessing, and a cash capital of seventy-five cents which 
she had given him, he took passage across the Hudson river 
and trudged to Newburgh, Making the acquaintance, on the 
road, of a farmer of whom he asked a ride, he found a situation 
with the farmer's son, a country store-keeper at Balm Town, 
near Newburgh. Commencing as a general drudge, he quickly 
manifested such commendable qualities as secured him promo- 
tion, and remained there three years. He then became a clerk 
with Daniel Smith, another merchant of Newburgh, at a salary 
of three hundred dollars per annum. After one year's service, 
he returned home with his four years' net earnings — the sum 
of one hundred and fifty dollars — and entered his father's estab- 
lishment as book-keeper and collector. Misfortunes, however, 
now began to shadow the Vassar family. Nor did they come 
singly. On the 10th of May, 1811, the Vassar brewery waa 



632 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

burned ; and, two days later, the eldest son, Jolin Guy, then in 
his 22d year, was suffocated by the carbonic acid gas emanating 
from a recently emptied beer vat, among the ruins, into which 
he was entering. Other losses followed ; and, when past fifty 
years of age, James Vassar and his family found themselves 
reduced to comparative poverty. Business efforts proved una- 
vailing ; and the discouraged man leased and tilled a little farm 
of fourteen acres on the New York and Albany post road, in 
the outskirts of Poughkeepsie. Here, in 1837, his Avife died, 
and he followed her three years later. His brother Thomas, 
who carried on the brick-making business in Poughkeepsie, 
died in 1849, nearly ninety-three years old. 

Young Matthew Vassar now assumed not only the responsi- 
bilities of his own fortunes, but of the support of his aged and 
unfortunate parents and family. With slender resources, and 
with only a few kettles and tubs, he managed to manufacture 
ale at the rate of three barrels at a time, selling it in ?mall 
quantities, and delivering it to customers with his own hands. 
In the spring of 1812, he hired a basement room in the then 
recently completed county court-house, and opened an ale and 
oyster shop — the first " oyster saloon" which Poughkeepsie 
ever had. His place became a great resort for lawyers, 
politicians, ofQcials, and the best class of citizens — and es- 
pecially so during the exciting " war times" of 1812-1815. 
Meanwhile, success had smiled so brightly upon the young 
brewer, that he felt justified in assuming the responsibility of 
matrimony ; and accordingl}^, in the spring of 1813, was united 
to Miss Catherine Valentine. 

In the following spring (181-1), Mr. Thomas Purser, a prac- 
tical business man, of considerable wealth, offered to become a 
partner, and to furnish a handsome amount of capital ; and his 
offer was gladly accepted. The new firm of M. Vassar & Co. 



MATTHEW VAS3AR. 633 

erected new buildings, and Mr. Vassar now gave hia entire atten- 
tion to the maniifocture of ale. The partnership, after two years' 
successful operation, closed by the withdrawal of Mr. Purser, 
on account of failing health ; and his place was filled by Nathan 
and Mulford Conklin, extensive merchants of Poughkeepsie, 
whose interest Mr. Vassar purchased in 1829. Subsequently, 
the extent of the business led him to take into partnership his 
nephews, Matthew Vassar, Jr., and John Guy, sons of his de- 
ceased brother, John Guy. New buildings were erected ; from 
time to time other younger men were introduced into the firm; 
and, finally, in 1866, Mr. Vassar — after over fifty years of active 
business — sold out his interest in the establishment to his 
nephew, 0. H. Booth, and retired into private life. 

Hitherto, we have spoken merely of Matthew Vassar — the 
successful brewer. We have now to speak of Matthew Vassar, 
the philanthropist, — the large-souled, wise and thoughtful man, 
intent on making the best and most beneficent use of the vast 
wealth which he had amassed by industry and enterprise. 
Full a quarter of a century ago, Matthew Vassar, — childless, 
yet full of the true parental feeling — conceived the idea of 
establishing some institution, either a hospital, a school for the 
education of females, or an asylum for orphans, which should 
be a blessing to his fellow-men, and a perpetual memorial of his 
family-name. In 1845, together with his wife, he made an ex- 
tended tour in Europe, and among the many places of interest 
which they visited, none seemed more to attract the attention of 
this practical man than the Free Grammar school, and the hos- 
pital at Southampton, England, and the great Guy's hospital, at 
London, founded by one whose family Avas connected with that 
of Vassar. His mind, full of benevolent desire, at first inclined 
toward the founding of an asylum fjr the sick ; but after his 
return from Europe, the idea of a seminary for female education 



684 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

was suggested to bim bj a niece, who bad au excellent private 
school in Poughkeepsie. Meanwhile, Mr. Vassar, together with 
the citizens of that place, had become interested in the project 
of a rural cemetery ; and, pending their movements, Mr. Vassar 
availed himself of an opportunity which offered, and purchased, 
for the sum of $8000, a farm of about fifty acres, near Pough- 
keepsie — which he offered the association at a merely nominal 
price. Its topographical features and remarkable beauties 
eminently fitted it for their purpose ; and pending their decision 
Mr. Vassar proceeded, with the aid of A. J. Downing, the 
eminent landscape gardener, and others, to prepare "Spriugside," 
as it was called, for its future uses. The cemetery association, 
however, finally decided to locate elsewhere, and Mr. Vassar 
determined to retain and beautify the farm for his own use — ■ 
bestowing upon it all the labor and cultivated taste which his 
judgment and his ample means could command. Meanwhile, 
his niece had died, and his mind had reverted somewhat toward 
his earlier predilection for the erection of a hospital. In 1855, 
Prof. Milo P. Jewett opened a seminary at Poughkeepsie — 
became acquainted with Mr. Vassar, and was the means of 
again enlisting his sympathy in favor of the establishment of a 
great institution for the education of girls. Long and deliber- 
ate examination of the subject, aided by the advice of most of 
the leading educators of the country, preceded the initial mea- 
sures of his grand design. Mr. Vassar's enthusiasm was happily 
tempered with the prudence and foresight inculcated by his 
vast experience as a business man. Finally, with a maturity 
of plan, and a perfection of detail, altogether unusual in such 
great undertakings, the idea emerged, full-armed, Minerva-like, 
from his brain into complete and symmetrical action. In the 
spring of 1860, Mr. Vassar being then nearly seventy years 
old. Prof Jewett was selected as chief co-worker, plans were 



MATTHEW VASSAR. 635 

elaborated, and on the 18th of January, 1861, a charter was 
obtained from the Legislature, fully incorporating the Vassar 
Female College, or, as it was subsequently amended, " The 
Yassar College." In February following, a board of twenty 
eight trustees (half of whom were residents of Poughkeepsie) 
was duly organized, to whom, on the same day, Mr. Vassar 
transferred bonds, stocks, deeds, etc., valued at over §-100,000, 
for the purposes of the college. The venerable founder's own 
design and wishes, in regard to the proposed institution, may bo 
best understood by the following extracts from his remarks on 
this interesting occasion. 

" It having pleased God that I should have no descendants to 
inherit my property, it has long been my desire, after suitably 
providing for those of my kindred who have claims upon me, 
to make such a disposition of my means as should best honor 
God, and benefit my fellow-men. At different periods I have 
regarded various plans with favor, but these have all been dis- 
missed, one after another, until the subject of erecting and 
endowing a college for the education of young women was 
presented for my consideration. The novelty, grandeur, and 
benignity of the idea arrested ray attention. The more carefully 
I examined it, the more strongly it commended itself to my 
judgment, and interested my feelings. It seemed to me that 
woman, having received from her Creator the same intellectual 
constitution as man, has the same right as man to intellectual 
culture and development. 

"I considered that the mothers of a country mould the 
character of its citizens, determine its institutions, and shape its 
destiny. Next to the influence of the mother is that of the 
female teacher, who is employed to train young children at 
a period when impressions are most vivid and lasting. It also 
seemed to me that if woman was properly educated, some new 
avenues to useful and honorable employment, in entire harmony 
with the gentleness and modesty of her sex, might be opened to 
her 



636 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

" It further appeared that there is not in our country, there 
is not in the world, so far as is known, a single fully endowed 
institution for the education of woman. 

" It was also in evidence that, for the last thirty years, the 
standard of education for the sex has been constantly rising in 
the United States ; and the great, felt, pressing want has been 
ample resources to secure, to the female seminaries, the elevated 
character, the stability and permanency of our best colleges. 

" Influenced by these and similar considerations, after devoting 
my best powers to the study of the subject, for a number of 
years past; after duly weighing the objections against it, and 
the arguments that preponderate in its favor ;' and the project 
having received the warmest commendation of many promi- 
nent literary men and practical educators, as well as the 
universal approval of the public press, I have come to the con- 
clusion, that the establishment and endowment of a college for 
the education of young women is a work which will satisfy my 
highest aspirations, and will be, under God, a rich blessing to 
this city and State, to our country and the world. It is my 
hope to be the instrument, in the hands of providence, of 
founding and perpetuating an institution which shall accom- 
plish for young women, what our colleges are accomplishing 
for young men. In pursuance of this design I have obtained 
from the Legislature an act of incorporation, conferring upon 
the proposed seminary the corporate title of ^'■Vassar Female 
College^''^ and naming you, gentlemen, as the first trustees. Under 
the provisions of this charter, you are invested with all the 
powers, privileges and immunities, which appertain to any 
college or university in the State. 

" To be somewhat more specific in the statement of my views, 
as to the character and aims of the college. I wish that the 
course of study should embrace at least the following particu- 
lars : the English language and its literature ; other modern 
languages; the mathematics, to such an extent as may be 
deemed advisable ; all the branches of natural science, with full 
apparatus, cabinets, collections and conservatories for visible 
illustration ; Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene, with practical 



MATTHEW VASSAR. 637 

reference to the laws of the health of the sex; Intellectual 
Philosophy; the elements of Political Economy; some know- 
ledge of the Federal and State constitutions and laws; Moral 
Science, particularly as bearing on tlic filial, conjugal and 
parental relations; ^Esthetics, as treating of the beautiful in 
nature and art, and to be illustrated by an extensive gallery 
of art ; Domestic Economy, practically taught so far as is 
possible, in order to prepare the graduate herself to become a 
skilful housekeeper; last, and most important of all, the daily 
regular reading and study of the Holy Scriptures as the only 
and all-sufficient rule of Christian faith and practice. All 
sectarian influences should be carefully excluded ; but the 
training of our students should never be entrusted to the 
skeptical, the irreligious or immoral, * * * * 

"In forming the first board of trustees, I have selected 
representatives from the principal Christian denominations 
among us, and in filling the vacancies which may occur in this 
body, as, also, in appointing the professors, teachers, and other 
officers of the college, I trust a like Catholic spirit will always 
govern the trustees. 

" It is not my purpose to make Yassar Female College a 
charity school, whose advantages shall be free to all without 
charge, for benefits so cheaply obtained are cheaply held ; but 
it is believed the funds of the institution will enable it to offer 
to all, the highest educational facilities at a moderate expense, 
as compared with the cost of instruction in existing seminaries. 
I earnestly hope the funds will prove suf&cient to warrant the 
gratuitous admission of a considerable number of indigent 
students annually, at least by regarding the amount remitted, 
in such cases, as a loan, to be subsequently repaid from the 
avails of teaching, or otherwise. Preference should be given 
to beneficiaries of decided promise, such as are likely to distin- 
guish themselves in some particular department or pursuit, 
and especially to those who propose to engage in the teaching 
of the young as a profession," 

Measures were immediately taken to erect college buildings, 



638 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

tlie ground being formally broken by the venerable founder. 
On the 4tli of June, 1861, Mr. Tefft, the arcliitect, was sent 
to Europe to perfect the plans of the building, and dying at 
Florence, in Italy, was succeeded by James Eenwick, Jr., the 
well-known architect of the Smithsonian institute, whose plans 
were accepted ; and despite the agitated condition of the country 
consequent on the struggle then taking place between the Gov- 
ernment and the secessionists, the great work of beneficence 
went steadily forward. So successful was its progress, that in 
the month succeeding the cessation of hostilities, the board, at 
its annual meeting (June, 1865), found the college edifices so 
nearly completed and equipped, the system of instruction so 
well planned, and the appointments to the professorships so 
satisfactorily made, that they were enabled to open the insti- 
tution for the reception of students early in the ensuing 
autumn. In 1864, Prof. Jewett resigned the presidency of the 
institution, and was succeeded by John H. Eaymond, LL.D. 
In June, 1865, Mr. Vassar resigned his connection with the 
college as one of its trustees and chairman of its executive 
committee, and, on the 29th of April, 1866, his birthday was 
honored by the students with a public reception, and the day 
set apart henceforth, in the college calendar, as " Founder's 
Day." 

The college buildings, which cost over a half a million of 
dollars, are complete in all their appointments, and as was 
fitting in such an institution, have more of the comforts and 
luxuries of a pleasant home, than can be found in any college 
in the United States. They are heated throughout by steam, 
and lighted by gas manufactured on the premises. They are 
neatly, and even elegantly furnished ; and the ample library, 
the noble art gallery and museums, astronomltal observatory, 
chemical laboratory, and other aids and appliances for scientific. 



MATTHEW VASSAR. 639 

and artistic culture, as well as the very large corps of able 
professors and teachers, indicate that the wishes of the venerable 
founder of the college will be fully satisfied. Mr. Vassar 
has made subsequent donations to the college, raising the 
entire amount of his gifts to oiore than half a million of 
dollars. 



DANIEL DREW. 



[T would seem probable to an abstract reasoner that men 
whose early advantages for education were very limited, 
^^ but who by their enterprise and native capacity for 
business have amassed large fortunes, would not bestow 
any considerable portion of their hard earned wealth on educa- 
tional institutions, however charitable might be their disposition 
toward other objects. Experience proves this deduction incor- 
rect. The largest benefactors to education, in the present age 
certainly, have been men who not only never received instruc- 
tion within college walls, but had but a scanty share even of 
the ordinary advantages of the district school. Peabody, Vassar, 
Cornell, Jay Cooke, are all examples of this, and the subject 
of our present sketch is not less remarkable in this respect than 
the others. 

Daniel Drew was born at Carmel, Putnam county, New 
York, July 29th 1797. His early years were passed on his 
father's farm, and his education in youth was only such as a 
country district school in that rocky farming county afforded. 
When fifteen years old his father died, leaving him to carve a 
fortune for himself. He directed his attention chiefly to the 
personal driving of cattle to market, and selling them, until 
1829, when he made New York city his permanent residence, 

and there continued the cattle trade by establishing a depot, 
640 



BAXIEL DREW. G41 

and purchasing largely through agents and ])artner.s. In Is;',-!.^ 
Mr. Drew was induced to take a pecuniary interest in a steani- 
boat enterprise. From that time his history is identified w'nh 
the inception and growth of the steamboat passenger trade »>n 
the Hudson river. By shrewd management, low rates of fare, 
and good accommodations, the line which Drew promoted grew 
in favor with the travelling community, notwithstanding the 
powerful opposition brought to bear on it by other steamboat 
men, among whom was Commodore Vanderbilt. Competition 
ran so high, that at one time the steamboat Waterwitch, in 
v.'hich Drew had invested his first venture, carried passengers 
to Albany for a shilling each. 

In 1840, Mr. Isaac Newton formed a joint stock company, in 
which Drew became the largest stockholder. This was the 
origin of the famous " People's Line," which commenced busi- 
ness by running new, large, and elegantly fitted-up steamboats, 
and from time to time added new and improved vessels to their 
running stock. When the Hudson river railroad was opened 
in 1852, it was confidently expected by many that the steamboat 
interest was doomed. Drew thoug-ht otherwise, and refused to 
accept the advice of his friends, who admonished him to sell 
his boats and withdraw from a business about to fail. The 
event justified his course. The railroad served but to increase 
travel, and rendered the steamboats more popular than ever. 
The large steamers now attached to the " People's Line," which 
command the admiration of every visitor and traveler on 
account of their superb decorations, and the extent and com- 
fortable character of their accommodations, attest the prosperity 
attendant upon the management, a leading spirit of which Mr. 
Drew has been from the beginning. The Dean Eichmond, St. 
John, and Drew are unsurpassed for model, machinery, speed, 

und finish, by any river steamboats in the wide world. 
41 



642 MEN OF OUE DAY. 

Mr. Drew has not only boldly adventured in " steamboating," 
bat has won reputation and wealth in the much more uncertain 
sphere of stock-brokerage. In 1840 ho formed a co-partnership 
with Mr. Nelson Taylor and Mr. Kelly, his son-in-law, in that 
business, which was carried on with marked success for more 
than ten years. Both these partners, although much younger 
than Mr. Drew, are sleeping in the tomb, while he is still 
employing some of his large capital in the same line through 
confidential hands. He has been for some years past an active 
director and very large stockholder in the Erie and several 
other of our trunk railroads, and his transactions in the stocks 
and bonds of these roads have been very large. 

The noble deed which has brought him into special promi- 
nence, and rendered his name, like those of Cornell and Pea- 
body, a synonym for active benevolence, is the founding of the 
Drew Theological Seminary, at Madison, Morris county. New 
Jersey. To this end Mr. Drew, at the recent centennial of 
Methodism, offered half a million dollars. The property pur- 
chased for the seminary is pleasantly situated in one of the 
most thriving towns, and in the midst of some of the finest 
scenery in northern New Jersey. Its distance from New 
York city is only twenty-eight miles. 

Besides this large benefaction, Mr. Drew has contributed 
extensively to various religious and educational institutions, 
among which the Wesleyan University and the Concord 
Biblical Institute are prominent. To these institutions he has 
given in all about $150,000. 

In Putnam county he owns upward of a thousand acres of 
land, on which large numbers of cattle are raised for the 
market. The pursuits of his early manhood have for him still 
strong attractions, but here again his management is marKed 
by a generous spirit. On this estate he has been chiefly instru- 



DANIEL DREW. Gi3 

mental in the building of a church ami school-house. In the 
latter, the advantages of a good education are afforded gratui- 
tously to the children of the place. Ho has also established 
and partially endowed an excellent female seminary at Carmel, 
the county seat of this county. 

In form and physiognomy Mr. Drew is not especially impres- 
sive. His height is about six feet, his person slender, and his 
general expression and manner unassuming and mild, but firm. 
He stands before us as an example of the persevering, energetic, 
shrewd, and successful business man, and not only so, but 
also as an example of the practical workings of an earnest and 
sincere philanthropy. 



ALEXANDER TURNEY STEWART.* 



BOUT 1825, an alert, sanguine, and active young mau 
Vc/Aj commenced the dry goods business in Broadway, 
nearly opposite his present store. He began with a 
capital of about three thousand dollars. In the three 
years 1865-'6-'7, this gentleman sold two hundred and three 
million dollars worth of goods. It is hardly necessary to say 
that the young man was Alexander Turney Stewart, whose 
income for 1864 was the largest of any merchant in the world. 

Carefully reared by a Quaker grandfather in Belfast, Ireland, 
Mr. Stewart received an excellent classical education — which 
has not been allowed to rust. The intimate acquaintance with 
classic authors which Mr. Stewart had in his youth, has been 
cultivated as a pleasure and a relief from the cares of business, 
until many a professor of Latin and Greek, might envy that 
gentleman his knowledge of the niceties of those languages. 

On reaching New York, Mr. Stewart looked around for a 
career. He taught the classics, not with a view of making it a 
profession, but to oblige a friend. At length he formed a 
partnership with a gentleman, who was to furnish a portion of 
the means and all the experience for a mercantile career. For 
some reason or other, this party abandoned the enterprise. Mr. 

* For the greater part of this sketch we are indebted to a very well 
written biography of the great merchant in Haney's Journal. 
644 



ALEXANDER TURNEY STEWART. 6-15 

Stewart, not daunted, inexperienced as lie was, faced the situa- 
tion, and started alone, in 1827, at 262 Broadway. Almost in 
the first week of his mercantile career, he had the good or ill 
fortune to be discharged by one of his salesmen. The occasion 
was as follows : — 

One day an old lady came in and accosting the young maa 
alluded to, asked to see some calicoes. 

She seemed satisfied with the style, but asked, with prudent 
caution — 

" Will this wash ?" 

" Oh ! yes, ma'am." 

" Then I'll take a little piece and try it, and if the colors are 
fast, I'll get some of it." 

"'What's the use of taking all that trouble," said the clerk. 
" I have tried it, and I know it holds its color." 

The old lady felt assured and took a dress. Ladies did wear 
calicoes, then. Mr. Stewart was an interested auditor during 
this discourse. When the lady departed, he stepped up and 
said: 

" But, Mr. , why did you tell that old lady such an untruth 

about that calico ?" 

" Oh ! that's all in the way of business," said the salesman. 

"But," said Mr. Stewart, "that doesn't seem a good way of 
business. That lady will try the calico; it will f:ide — she will 
come and accuse us of misreprosentation and demand her 
money back, and she will be right." 

" Oh ! then I'll say, ' you are quite mistaken, ma'am ; you 
never got the goods here ; you must have got them at the store 
above.' " 

" Well then, if that's the case," said the master of the business, 
" don't let it occur again. I don't want goods represented for 
,what they are not. If the colors are not fast, it is easy to ex- 



64:6 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

plain to them that certain colors are not fast, and cannot he 
mado so for the price at which they are sold, and they will buy 
as soon, knowing the truth, as any other way." 

" Look here, Mr. Stewart," said the salesman, " if those are 
going to be your principles in trade, I'm going to look for 
another situation. You won't last very long !" 

And he was as good as his word. It appears, however, that 
Mr. Stewart's ideas of business were tolerably successful, for to- 
day he wields a capital of forty millions. Apart from this rigor- 
ous devotion to principle in his business, Mr. Stewart owes much 
of his success to great delicacy of touch and taste, and judgment 
in colors and textures, almost feminine in sensibilit}- ; add to 
these qualities a masculine grasp of events and an instantaneous 
perception of those shadows which are cast by events, and you 
have all the elements of the great merchant. Mr. Stewart early 
began to survey the political field, and when he would see a 
storm ahead, there would be a silent purchase of all of certain 
goods in the market, which would be sure to rise in a certain 
contingency. At other times he was the first to foresee a fall- 
ing market and to put his goods before the public with such 
swiftness and address that he, cleared his shelves with the least 
loss — while his slower friends were carried under the current 
of thirty-seven, forty-seven, fifty-seven, or sixty-seven, as the 
case might be. (Our merchants are superstitious about the 
' sevens," and many think to-day that any year, with a seven in 
it, brings misfortune to the trade.) There was a time during 
the war when Mr. Stewart held more cotton goods than all the 
other dry goods firms put together. There was also a time 
•when he was the first to sell at the reduced price. Mr. Stewart 
has a memory for his business as remarkable as that of others 
for languages and figures, lie can tell to-day the ruling prices 
of staple goods for every year of the last forty. 



ALEXANDER TURNEY STEWART. 647 

Another peculiarity. The house of A. T. Stewart k Co. 
has always bought for cash — and one more and striking peculi- 
arity, full of its lesson to American merchants — he has never 
speculated one penny's worth outside of his business, nor, 
strictly speaking, in it. When he has bouglit largely, it wa.s 
to supply his customers with a greatly needed article — and 
when he reduced prices, it was not to injure others, but a ready 
submission to the inevitable in trade. His advantage consisted 
in knowing early what was inevitable. In connection with 
this, let us remark here, that reading tliis, one miglit suppose 
Mr. Stewart to be little more than a dealer in dry goods. There 
could be no greater mistake. He is a liberally educated gentle- 
man, as we said before. Like all leaders, business is easy to 
him and does not absorb his whole soul. There are few men in 
our country better qualified to derive enjoyment from liorace 
and Tacitus, than Mr. Stewart. He is the hope and refuge of 
artists — for he is an admirer and enjoyer of good works of art, 
and if he does not buy all that appears meritorious, it is only 
because the marble mansion in Fifth Avenue, and the brown 
stone opposite, will hold no more. 

• There is in some circles an impression, studiously cultivated 
by a few, that Mr. Stewart squeezes out small dealers mercilessly 
■ — lest they grow too great for him. It is entirely unfounded. 
He conducts his business on business principles, and no business 
can last long, or become great, that is conducted otherwise. 
That Mr. Stewart regrets the inevitable injury to small dealers, 
which his large operations cause, we have ample evidence. He 
said recently to a gentleman, who was making some inquiries : 

"They'll have me in the concert saloon business next.'' 
Laughing again, probably at the curious figure he would cut in 
that avocation, "The truth is, I intend only to enlarge the 
facilities for retail trade at the upper store, and group together 



6iS MEN OF OUR DAY. 

those departments which should be properly associated, and 
which are now scattered on two floors, and cause a great deal 
of running up and down stairs. Here is the Yankee notion 
stock ; we have no room for it here, and it ought to be moved 
up to the other store. I am urged to do this constantly, but 
hesitate only for one reason. The moment we throw open that 
department to the retail trade, a great many smaller dealers in 
the vicinity will suffer. Tiie advantages we possess are so 
superior that competition of small dealers is out of the ques- 
tion, and the moment they feel the pressure they cry out against 
monopoly, and attribute all kinds of vindictiveness to the firm. 
But, after all, the public at large are benefitted. We are 
enabled to offer them the largest stock at the smallest cost, with 
all the guarantees that are inseparable from a responsible house, 
whose name and honor are part of the business. This seems to 
be the great advantage of the tendency to aggregate business 
interests of a kindred nature. It cheapens manufacture, and 
capital becomes a vehicle between the petty producer and the 
consumer. Aside from the fact that the system economizes power, 
it should be remembered that it is better calculated to foster 
native industry in many cases. Take, for instance, the Ameri- 
can beaver cloths, made for this house expressly by the Utica 
Steam Mills. They are now conceded to be equal to any made 
anywhere, and lying side by side with imported goods, suffer no 
depreciation. They are perfecting the manufacture so rapidly 
in cassimeres and similar goods, under proper stimulaiion, that 
already the demand for American manufacture exceeds the 
foreign. It is absurd to suppose, as is generally the case, that 
the increasing facilities and demands of a great business in New 
York, or anywhere, in fact, must be associated with rivalry or 
greed; generally the magnitude of the business swallowi^ip all 
Ruch considerations ; in fact the growth and extension are not 



ALEXANDER TUIiXEY STEWART. 6^9 

the s.ibject of special endeavor, but are the inevitable couse- 
qu( nee of a healthy organization. Any business beyond a 
cer'vain point becomes germinal, and grows in all directions. 
The greatest care has to be exercised in its traininLr and prun- 
ing. People come to me and ask me for my secret of success; 
v/hy, I have no secret, I tell them. My business has been a 
matter of principle from the start. That's all there is about it. 
If the golden rule can be incorporated into purely mercantile 
affairs it has been done in this establishment, and you must 
have noticed, if you have observed closely, that the customers 
are treated precisely as the seller himself would like to be 
treated were he in their place. That is to say, nothing is 
misrepresented, the price is fixed, once and for all, at the lowest 
possible figure, and the circumstances of the buyer are not 
suffered to influence the salesman in his conduct in the smallest 
particular. I think you will find the same principle of justice 
tliroughout the larger transactions of the house, and especially 
in its dealings with employees. I do not speak of it as deserv- 
ing of praise — we find it absolutely necessary. What we cannot 
afford is violation of principle." 

Here Mr. Stewart has given his whole theory of business. 
To another gentleman, who said to him one morning — "Mr. 
Stewart, you are a very rich man, why do you bother yourself 
building this immense place?" 

Said Mr. Stewart : " That is the very question I asked myself 
this morning, when I took a look at that big hole in the ground. 
Tlie worst of it is," he continued, without giving a complete 
reply, and with a regretful tone, as if the tiling must be done, 
and yet cause him sorrow, " my neighbors don't like it." 

The stories of Mr. Stewart's competition with other houses, 
larger small, are all mythical. There is room enough for all, 
in his opinion, and we may say, that in our opinion, when an- 



650 MEN OF OUR DAY. 

Other man comes along with the qualifications of a Stewart, he 
will acquire the fortune of a Stewart. 

" The star of your fate is in your own breast," says the Ger- 
man poet. 

Mr. Stewart is, of course, the recipient of a vast number of 
applications for every kind and form of charity. To deserving 
objects, his liberality is large and enduring — but he fights the 
many swindles and dribbles that eat away weaker men's for- 
tunes without helping the receiver, with a keenness and warmth 
that is acquainted with the tricks and manners of the begging 
tribe. Many old merchants of New York, who have failed in 
business, have had their declining years made easy by the kind- 
ness of Mr. Stewart, but he is as reticent of these deeds as he is 
of every thing that tends to personal praise. The large way in 
which he prefers to do things, is evidenced in his conduct during 
the last season of great distress in Ireland, during our war, when 
he bought a ship, loaded her with stores, shipped them to Bel- 
fast, his native town, and brought over in return, a ship load of 
young men and women, free of cost, to the land of hope — 
America. 

As to his views on politics, Mr. Stewart has attempted, as far 
as he has been active at all, to get public affairs out of the 
hands of professional politicians, into those of men who will do 
the public business on the same principles upon which private 
business is done. This will be the case some day, but Mr. 
Stewart will not see it. He is the strong and active friend of 
General Grant as a candidate for the presidency, and was one 
of the large contributors to the present of one hundred thou- 
Band dollars, made him by the merchants of New York city, 
as an acknowledgment of his great services in the overt]w:ow of 
the Rebellion. 

Mr. Stewart is a man of progress — of the modern time — he 



ALEXANDER TURNET STEWART. 661 

is a man for improvement and enjoyment. When he builds, 
he does it with iron, and plenty of glass — fire proof — with abun- 
dant light — the structure perfectly adapted to all its purposes, 
and securing the comfort of all within — no gothic dimness, or 
Grecian anachronism in architecture, has a chance with him. 
When he builds a house for another — as his marble palace in 
Fifth Avenue — to use his own words, " a little attention to Mrs. 
Stewart" — it is a different matter. That is to please her. 

Mr. Stewart is about sixty-four years of age, but looks good 
for twenty more. His eyes twinkle, as blue eyes often do, with 
the coming light of a frequent good thing. He has a merrv 
turn of mind, and enjoys himself in a little party with young 
folks, equal to any of his juniors, and can make fun, and take 
fun, equal to any. 

The operations of the house of A. T. Stewart & Co., are liter- 
ally world wide. Mr. William Libby, in jSTew York, Mr. 
Francis Warden, permanently in Paris, and Mr. G. Fox, in 
Manchester, England, compose the firm. It has three foreign 
bureaus, or depots — one on a triangular square at Cooper street, 
Manchester, where are collected, examined, and packed, all 
English goods. One at Belfast, for linens, which partakes of 
the nature of a factory as well, the linens being bought in the 
rough, and afterward bleached and fitted for the trade. This 
establishment is about the size of a double New York store, 
that is fifty by one hundred feet. In Glasgow, the firm have a 
h'ouse exclusively for Scotch goods. In Paris, the magazm, on 
the Eue Bergere, has been known to continental manufacturers 
for many years. Here are collected and arranged, for shipping 
to America, all East Indian, French and German goods, exclu- 
si^^jWf woolens. In Berlin is the woolen-house, equal in size 
to^m*ee ordinary New York stores. There are also, at Lyons, 
two large warehouses for silk goods. All the continental busi* 



052 MEX OF OUE DAY. 

ness is transacted at the Paris bureau, payments are made there, 
and a general supervision extended over the other establish- 
ments. In addition to these, it must be remembered that there 
are a number of manufacturers who do work exclusively for 
this firm, and are really branches of the business. For instance, 
they have the house of Alexandre, in Paris, constantly manu- 
facturing kid gloves for Stewart & Co., exclusively, while in 
this country and Great Britain, mills run all the year round to 
supply the New York house with goods. One such customer 
taxes all their powers. 

Then there are buyers, one for each of the fifteen departments 
in this house, who are constantly travelling somewhere? between 
Hong Kong and Chili, and who are in a measure responsi'ule 
for the condition of those departments at home. Special 
agents, too, on important embassies of a confidential nature, 
putting up in Thibet, or Brussels, or found on the Ganges, or 
among the Chinese cocoons. In fact, the cosmopolitan part of 
the house, the circulating human capital, must be formidable in 
numbers and diplomacy if ever assembled. And they were as- 
sembled once, we believe, at Manchester. A rumor had got 
abroad in Europe, that Mr. Stewart had died. To correct it, and 
accomplish some important movement, Mr. Stewart telegraphed 
extensively over the hemisphere for his ministers to meet him 
in Manchester, on a certain day, and there is a legend in that 
place of a mysterious congress having been held there, though 
public opinion was for a long time divided as to whctlser they 
were Orsini sympathizers, or Yankee invaders. 

In 1863, Mr. Stewart returned an income of $1,900,000— 
in 1864, one of $4,000,000, in 1865, of $1,600,000, and for 1866, 
of $600,000 — an average of very near $2,000,000 pen^Kar, 
Whether this rate of profit can be kept up is a questiontijpWit 
>s probable that the average will be increased instead' of di 



ALEXANDER TDRNEY STEWART. 658 

minished. Mr. Stewart is a largo holder of real estate, and 
among his many designs is one for building model houses for 
people of small, or moderate incomes. The plans for this pur- 
pose are silently but steadily progressing. It is understood to 
be Mr. Stewart's intention to expend about five millions of dol- 
lars in this noble and philanthropic enterprise. 



3I|.77-1 



